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THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED BY 

M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE 



THOMAS PAINE 

BY 

ELLERY SEDGWICK 




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ELLERY SEDGWICK 











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Prm of 

George H. Ellis, Boston 



Tlie photogravure used as a frontispiece 
to this volume is reproduced from a pho- 
tograph of the portrait of Thomas Paine 
which hangs in Independence Sail. This 
painting, presented to the city of Philadel- 
phia in 1859 by a number of prominent 
citizens, is a copy by Bass Otis of a por- 
trait by John Wesley Jarvis, an intimate 
.^friend of Paine* s. The picture shows 
^aine in the prime of life, and the careful 
f dress is characteristic of his personal habits. 
The reproduction here given is by John 
Andrew & Son, of Boston. 



PEEFACE. 

Politics and religion have bred the best 
haters among men. Thomas Paine has been 
abhorred as a revolutionist and execrated as 
a heretic. He lived during the mightiest 
events of modem history, at a time when no 
public man was safe from the bitterest as- 
saults of rancor and of malice ; but not one 
of his contemporaries has been slandered 
more relentlessly than he. He attacked all 
who differed from him in the two most sen- 
sitive spots in human nature, and richly 
lias he paid the penalty. 

The literature which has grown up about 
Paine and his works bears this witness. It 
is almost exclusively controversial. One 
writer assails : the next defends. Of dispas- 
sionate narrative there is very little. Paine 9 s 
earliest biographers, George CJialmers and 
James Cheetham, paused at no lies which 
could dirty their victim 1 s reputation. Their 
volumes became the basis of a mythology 
which cannot bear casual investigation. 
The writers who answered them were eido- 



viii PREFACE. 

gists of Paine. It has remained for Mr. 
Moncure D. Conway to publish in 1892 an 
accurate and exhaustive biography, which 
must be the basis of all honest subsequent 
investigation. But Mr. Conway 1 s zeal for 
the right lias led him too far. He presents 
his voluminous material to the reader with 
the utmost candor, but his deductions from 
it are colored by his sympathies. Sis book 
is the ablest argument for the defence. 

The purpose of this small volume is to tell 
the story of Thomas Paine without bias and 
without argument. It is difficult, indeed, 
to write of Paine without enthusiasm for 
his genius and a lively recognition of his 
great services to liberty. But his faults are 
set down frankly. The reader shall be 
judge and jury. 

In respect to the more obscure episodes in 
the life of Paine, it seems well to add that 
lack of space has prevented any explanation 
of the course I have preferred to follow. 
Nothing, I hope, has been written without 
authority or without reflection. 

ELLERY SEDGWICK. 
Boston, November 1, 1899. 



CHKOXOLOGY. 

1737 
January 29. Thomas Paine was born in 
Thetford, Norfolk County, England. 

1750 
Left school to learn the trade of stay- 
making. 

1756 
Shipped on the privateer King of Prus- 
sia. Left the service, and followed his 
trade in London. 

1759 
Established himself as a master stay- 
maker at Sandwich, Kent. 
September 29. Married Mary Lambert. 
Failed in business. 

1760 
His wife died. 

1761 
Became an exciseman. 

1765 
Discharged from his position. 



x CHKOM)LOGY 

1766 

Taught school in London. Eeinstated 
in the excise. 

1770 
Engaged in the tobacco business. 

1771 
March 26. Married Elizabeth Ollive at 
Lewes, Sussex. 

1772 
Addressed a pamphlet to Parliament in 
behalf of the salaries of excisemen. 

1774 
Again dismissed from the excise. Failed 
in business. Legally separated from his 
wife. 

October. Sailed for America with a let- 
ter from Dr. Franklin. 

1775 
Assumed the editorship of the Pennsyl- 
vania Magazine. 

1776 
January 10. Published the pamphlet 
Common Sense. 
Controversy with the Tory, Eev. Will- 



CHKOMXLOGY xi 

iam Smith. Conferred with Jefferson 
concerning the form of the Declaration 
of Independence. Enlisted in the Con- 
tinental Army. 
December 19. Published the first Crisis. 

1777 

January. Appointed secretary of com- 
mission to treat with the Indians. 
April. Elected secretary of Congres- 
sional Committee for Foreign Affairs. 
Eequested to keep the Pennsylvanian 
Assembly informed in regard to mili- 
tary movements. Published the second, 
third, and fourth Crises. 

1778 
Published the fifth, sixth, and seventh 
Crises. 

1779 
Controversy with Silas Deane. Eesigned 
his Congressional appointment. Became 
clerk in the office of Owen Biddle. Ap- 
pointed clerk of the Assembly of Penn- 
sylvania, 



xii CHKONOLOGY 

1780 
Headed a subscription for the benefit of 
the army, which subsequently became 
the foundation of the Bank of North 
America. Eeceived degree from the 
University of Pennsylvania. Published 
the eighth and ninth Crises and the 
Crisis Extraordinary. 

1781 
Accompanied Colonel Laurens on a suc- 
cessful mission to get money from France. 

1782 
Employed by Congress as a salaried 
writer. Published the tenth, eleventh, 
and twelfth Crises. Published Letter to 
Abbe Baynal. 

1783 
April 19. Published the last Crisis. 
Urged a stronger union among the States. 

1784 
His services recognized by New York 
and Pennsylvania. 

1785 
Presented by Congress with $3,000. De- 
signed models for bridges. 



CHEOUOLOGY xiii 

1787 
Sailed for France. Kevisited England 
for the first time. Published Prospects 
on the Bubicon. 

1791 
Published Bights of Man, Part I. Helped 
to found "La Societe Eepublicaine ' ' 
and to placard Paris with republican 
manifestoes. 

1792 
Published Bights of Man, Part II. Pub- 
lished Address to the Addressers. Tried 
and convicted of libel. Elected a mem- 
ber of the French Convention. Ap- 
pointed second member of committee for 
framing a constitution. 

1793 
Endeavored to save the life of Louis 
XVI. Allied himself with the.Giron- 
dins. Wrote Age of Beason, Part I. 
December. Denounced, arrested, and sent 
to prison. 

1794 
Was dangerously ill in prison. 



xiv CHKONOLOGY 

1794 (continued) 
November. Eeleased and restored to the 
Convention. 

1795 
Declined a pension offered by the French 
government. Spoke against limitation 
of the franchise. Suffered relapse of his 
illness. Wrote Age of Reason, Part II. 

1796 
Published a bitter letter addressed to 
Washington. Published Decline and Fall 
of the English System of Finance. 

1797 

Founded the Church of Theophilan- 

thropy. 

1798 

Advised a French expedition against 
England. 

1798-1802 
Eemained in Paris, interesting himself 

in inventions. 

1802 

Beturned to America. 



CHKONOLOGY xv 

1803-1806 
Lived in Bordentown, New Jersey, New 
Bochelle, and New York. Persecuted by 
i his enemies. . 

1806 
His vote rejected at New Eochelle. 
Stricken with apoplexy. 

1807-1809 
Lived chiefly in New York City. 

1809 
January 8. Thomas Paine died in New 
York City. 



THOMAS PAINE 



THOMAS PAINE. 



Thomas Paine was born at Thetford 
in the shire of Norfolk, England, on 
January 29, 1737. His father, Joseph 
Paine, was an honest Quaker, who earned 
a scanty livelihood by the aid of a small 
farm and a shop, where he followed his 
trade of making stays. His mother, 
whose maiden name had been Frances 
Cocke, was a member of the Established 
Church. 

The boy's education was of the scan- 
tiest. As a child, he attended the free 
grammar school, and was duly taught 
how to write, spell, and figure by the 
Eev. William Knowler. For languages 
he had small aptitude, and, owing to 
Quaker prejudice, Latin had no place in 
his curriculum ; but he early displayed 
the taste for science which distinguished 
him throughout his career. His heresies 
began with boyhood. "I well remem- 



2 THOMAS PAINE 

ber," lie wrote in later life, "when 
about seven or eight years of age, hear- 
ing a sermon read by a relation of mine, 
who was a great devotee of the Church, 
upon the subject of what is called Re- 
demption by the death of the Son of God. 
After the sermon was ended, I went into 
the garden ; and, as I was going down 
the garden steps (for I perfectly recol- 
lect the spot) I revolted at the recollec- 
tion of what I had heard, and thought 
to myself that it was making God Al- 
mighty act like a passionate man that 
killed his son, when he could not re- 
venge himself any other way ; and, as 
I was sure a man would be hanged that 
did such a thing, I could not see for 
what purpose they preached such ser- 
mons. This was not one of those kind 
of thoughts that had anything in it of 
childish levity ; it was to me a serious 
reflection, arising from the idea I had 
that God was too good to do such an 
action, and also too almighty to be under 



THOMAS PAINE 3 

any necessity of doing it.' 7 It was this 
which, led Paine to believe that a " sys- 
tem of religion that has anything in it 
that shocks, the mind of a child cannot 
be a true system.' 7 

He also gave evidence of a precocious 
turn for verse-making ; but this was 
happily discouraged, for there was not 
in him the stuff that poets are made of. 
His pet crow died, and the child wrote 
its epitaph : — 

"Here lies the body of John Crow, 
Who once was high, but now is low. 
Ye brother crows, take warning all, 
For, as you rise, so must you fall. 77 

The time of childhood was short. At 
thirteen the boy was taken from his 
books, and set to work on a bench in his 
father 7 s shop. But stay-making was irk- 
some to him. His mind ran on stories 
of the sea his schoolmaster had told him ; 
and, when war with France approached, 
he made an attempt to enlist aboard 



4 THOMAS PAINE 

the privateer Terrible, Captain Death. 
But his father, who looked on war as 
perdition, dissuaded him from his pur- 
pose. Bestlessness, however, was still 
upon him ; and in 1756 he shipped under 
Captain Mendez on The King of Prus- 
sia. The voyage was short, but long 
enough to show him the difference be- 
tween picture and reality ; and the 
same year Paine left his Majesty's ser- 
vice to seek his fortune in London. 

In London he remained two years, 
earning his bread by making stays for 
Mr. Morris of the city, and spending his 
free hours in studying the sciences. 
What little money he could spare went 
to purchase a pair of astronomical globes ; 
and he found time to attend the lectures 
given by two self-taught men of science, 
James Ferguson and Benjamin Martin. 

In 1758 Paine again tried to better his 
condition, and sought employment in his 
trade at Dover. But the following year 
found him installed as a master stay- 



THOMAS PAINE 5 

maker at Sandwich, Kent. For a brief 
period his trade flourished ; and he soon 
married Mary Lambert, a serving-maid 
in the family of a woollen-draper. But 
Paine was not born to make his fortune. 
His business failed miserably, and he 
moved to Margate. Here in 1760 his wife 
died; and Paine, thoroughly discouraged, 
determined to relinquish his trade. 

His wife's father had been an excise- 
man, and Paine now applied for a posi- 
tion in the revenue service. After some 
delay his request was granted, and he 
returned to Thetford as a supernumer- 
ary officer at a salary of £50 a year. By 
law every exciseman was obliged to keep 
his own horse ; and, when the necessary 
sums were deducted, Paine found that 
one shilling ninepence farthing must 
cover each day's expenses. Nor was 
this the only unpleasantness of his posi- 
tion. There has always been a blind 
spot in the moral vision, when smuggling 
is in view. To-day in America men vote 



6 THOMAS PADfE 

high tariffs ; while their wives, returning 
from Paris, omit the formalities of the 
custom-house. During the last century 
the average Englishman looked upon the 
excise as tyranny, and upon excisemen as 
publicans. The round of Paine' s duties 
was thus extremely disagreeable ; and, 
like others before him, he entered in his 
reports minutes of surveys which he 
had never made. The imposition was 
detected ; and, upon his own confession, 
Paine was discharged from office. 

For a brief period he resumed his 
hated trade at Diss in Norfolk, and then 
drifted back to London, where he taught 
English, first at an academy in Good- 
man's Fields, and afterward in Kensing- 
ton. These employments gave Paine 
some opportunity to continue his studies. 
But poverty was heavy upon him, and 
he applied to the board of excise for re- 
instatement. The petition was favor- 
ably received ; and early in 1768 Paine 
was appointed officer at Lewes, Sussex, 



THOMAS PAINE 7 

where lie took up his residence with Mr. 
Samuel Ollive, tobacconist. 

It is at Lewes that we find the first 
traces of Paine' s interest in public 
affairs. One day, while he was bowling 
with a friend, the latter carelessly re- 
marked that Frederick of Prussia was 
"the best fellow in the world for a 
king, he had so much of the devil in 
him" ; and it struck Paine, not unnatu- 
rally, that, if a king needed the devil, 
perhaps people had best contrive to get 
on without them both. 

Paine was a Whig by birthright, and 
his misfortunes had deepened his con- 
victions. Politics now began to take 
hold of him. He wrote a campaign 
song for a local election, and his muse 
soared a very little higher in a patriotic 
effusion on the death of General Wolfe. 
But a more serious matter presently 
claimed his attention. The wretchedly 
inadequate salaries of excisemen in- 
sured bad work and tempted honesty. 



8 THOMAS PAINE 

Their cause was Paine' s, and lie spent a 
whole winter in drawing up an appeal 
to Parliament. Four thousamd copies 
were struck off and distributed among 
members of Parliament and various men 
of influence. Later on Paine went him- 
self to London ; but he was unknown, 
and Parliament was well aware that the 
people of England were not averse to 
seeing an occasional exciseman driven to 
the wall. The petition was quietly ig- 
nored. 

Paine' s journey, however, had not 
been taken in vain ; for in London he 
was introduced to Dr. Franklin, who 
had been living there for some years, 
as agent for the State of Pennsylvania. 
The young man's scientific tastes ren- 
dered the meeting of peculiar interest 
to him ; and Franklin, whose judgment 
of men was shrewd as common sense 
could make it, soon recognized the ex- 
ciseman's ability. 

At Lewes, Paine' s misfortunes thick- 



THOMAS PAINE 9 

ened. In 1769 Ollive, the tobacconist 
iwith whom he lodged, died, leaving his 
slender business to be continued by his 
i widow and his daughter, Elizabeth. In 
1770 Paine joined forces with the two 
women in carrying it on ; and in March 
of the following year he was married to 
Elizabeth Ollive. The union was a 
most unhappy one. The little tobacco 
mill and shop yielded smaller and 
smaller returns. During Paine' s ab- 
sence in London, business was at a stand- 
still ; and, when he returned from his 
unsuccessful mission, the creditors fore- 
closed, and Paine had to leave town to 
escape arrest. His entire stock in trade 
was sold at public auction to pay his 
debts. Nor was this all. Paine had 
been absent from duty without permis- 
sion ; and, as he had been discharged 
once before, the board was deaf to ex- 
cuses. He was again dismissed, and left 
the king's service forever. 
At home there was no comfort, 



10 THOMAS PAINE 

Paine' s relations with, his wife have 
never been made clear. From the first 
they had not lived together ; and in June, 
1774, by common consent, they agreed 
to a formal separation, Elizabeth retain- 
ing the property left her by her father. 
In after years Paine often sent his wife 
sums of money anonymously. He al- 
ways spoke of her with kindness and 
respect, but he treated as impertinent 
the least allusion to the mystery which 
was between them. 

Paine had been jack-of-all-trades, and 
had mastered none. He had been stay- 
maker, sailor, teacher, exciseman, shop- 
keeper. Now at thirty-seven he was an 
outcast. In the desperate state of his 
fortunes the New World seemed alone 
to offer hope. He went to London, and 
again saw Franklin. The philosopher 
knew Paine better than Paine knew him- 
self. He advised him strongly to go to 
America, and gave him a kindly letter 
to his son-in-law Eichard Bache, repre- 



THOMAS PAINE 11 

senting the bearer, Mr. Thomas Paine, 
as an " ingenious worthy young man/' 
very capable of acting as a clerk, tutor, 
I or assistant surveyor. It was not least 
among the services which Franklin 
rendered his country. Paine set sail in 
October, and landed at Philadelphia on 
the last day of November, 1774. 

In spite of his lack of early advan- 
tages, there was nothing boorish about 
Paine' s appearance, or unmannerly in 
his address. He was a man of middle 
height, slender and well-proportioned. 
His forehead was high, his nose promi- 
nent. His eyes were the eyes of an en- 
; thusiast, brilliant and restless, yet with 
a look of penetration in them. He was 
vigorous and fond of exercise ; and his 
dress, when he had money to pay for it, 
! was chosen with some care. His man- 
| ners were easy. Friends, like enemies, 
| he made with little effort ; for, come 
friend, come foe, he wore his principles 
upon his sleeve, and, as for tact, the 
thought was strange to him. 



12 THOMAS PAINE 

Paine left England at a critical epoch 
in the history of her constitutional 
liberty. During the summer of that 
momentous year had occurred the his- 
toric debate in the House of Commons 
on the bill introduced by Fuller to re- 
peal the Tea Act and to relinquish once 
for all the vicious principle of taxing 
colonies for the benefit of the mother 
country. Then Burke, Fox, and Barre 
had fought for the rights of Englishmen 
born by upholding the cause of Wash- 
ington and Franklin ; but Lord North's 
majority had voted new bulwarks for 
rotten boroughs and royal corruption by 
defeating the bill and substituting in its 
place an act to punish Boston by closing 
its port and to deprive Massachusetts of 
its constitutional charter. 

The battle had been lost in England. 
It was fought on in America. The other 
colonies rallied about Massachusetts ; and 
in October the delegates of twelve col- 
onies met in Carpenters' Hall, Philadel- 



THOMAS PAINE 13 

phia, to form the Continental Congress. 
The first news Paine heard on landing 
was that two months before, the towns 
of Suffolk -County, Massachusetts, had 
declared the withdrawal of their charter 
null and void, and that Congress had 
despatched Paul Eevere to Boston with 
a formal approval of their action. The 
devolution was coming on apace. 

Paine' s first necessity was bread, and 
Franklin's letter guided the way. He 
became private tutor, on advantageous 
terms, to several young gentlemen, and 
was presently engaged by Mr. Eobert 
Aitkin as editor of the new Pennsylvania 
Magazine at a salary of £50 per annum. 

For a year and a half Paine conducted 
this magazine. His sympathies and his 
originality were apparent in every num- 
ber. One of his first contributions was 
an appeal for the emancipation of the 
negro, such as might have been written 
in Boston in the ? 50's. This article pro- 
cured for him the friendship of Dr. Ben- 



14 THOMAS PAINE 

jamin Bush, who, like Paine, had the 
subject much at heart. Little more than 
a month after its appearance, the first 
American anti-slavery society was formed 
in Philadelphia. International copy- 
right was scarcely dreamed of in those 
days : Paine pleaded for it. Duelling 
still had a place in a gentleman's code of 
honor : Paine wrote against it with in- 
dignation ; and, rising to a still nobler 
conception, he wrote : "I am thus far a 
Quaker that I would gladly agree with 
all the world to lay aside the use of arms, 
and settle matters by negotiations ; but, 
unless the whole world wills, the matter 
ends. . . . We live not in a world of 
angels. " . 

In truth, it was not a world of angels. 
The British ministry decided to increase 
the garrison of Boston to ten thousand 
men. In March, 1775, Franklin re- 
turned to America, and another strand 
in the rope which bound the colonies to 
England snapped. A month later Pit- 



THOMAS PAINE 15 

ji cairn met Parker on the green at Lex- 
ington ; and war was no longer inevita- 
ble, but a fact. In the course of the 
summer the hopelessness of reconcilia- 
tion was emphasized by the king's con- 
temptuous refusal to receive a petition 
which Eichard Penn had brought to 
London from the members of Congress ; 
and on October 31 news reached Phila- 
delphia that the town of Portland had 
been burned by British ships, and that 
King George had hired four generals 
and twenty thousand mercenaries to 
teach obedience to his American subjects. 
Even now, when the eleventh hour 
had struck, the American people did not 
wish an American nation, — far from it. 
Looking back through the perspective 
of history, it seems incredible that the 
hope of compromise could have endured 
so long among them. But the love for 
England was not extinct. The memory 
of the men who had fought for them and 
with them against the power of France 



16 THOMAS PAINE 

was not yet a generation old. Dread, 
however, more than sentiment, governed 
the multitude. Among many the fear 
of the king was the beginning of folly ; 
while others, as good patriots as lived, 
believed that the disruption of the fabric 
of British dominion meant the first stride 
of anarchy. Independence was not gov- 
ernment : it might be chaos. 

Even the leaders were but just reaching 
their inevitable decision. Washington, 
writing toward the close of 1774, re- 
marked that a person "who could be- 
lieve that the people of Massachusetts 
were setting up for independency and 
what not" had been grossly abused; 
and (as he afterward said) so late as 
July, 1775, when he first took command 
of the army, he " abhorred the idea of 
independence." " Before the 19th of 
April, 1775, " said Jefferson, -"I never 
heard a whisper of a disposition to sepa- 
rate from the mother country," and, if 
ever a man had sharp ears to catch the 



THOMAS PAINE 17 

whispers of the people, it was Jeffer- 
son. When, in March of the same year, 
Franklin declared that "no American, 
drunk or ' sober, thought of indepen- 
dence, " he was not far from right. 

While events were slowly urging the 
leaders forward, Paine had come to his 
own conclusions. On October 18, 1775, 
he published in the Pennsylvania Journal, 
over the signature "Humanus," words 
which freemen should hold in remem- 
brance : " And when I reflect on the use 
she [Great Britain] hath made of the 
discovery of this new world — that the 
little paltry dignity of earthly kings hath 
been set up in preference to the great 
cause of the King of kings — That in- 
stead of Christian examples to the Ind- 
ians, she hath basely tampered with 
their passions, imposed on their igno- 
rance, and made them the tools of treach- 
ery and murder — And when to these and 
many other melancholy reflexions I add 
this sad remark, that ever since the dis- 



18 THOMAS PAINE 

covery of America, she hath employed 
herself in the most horrid of all traffics, 
that of human flesh, unknown to the most 
savage nations, hath yearly (without 
provocation and in cold blood) ravaged 
the hapless shores of Africa, robbing it 
of its unoffending inhabitants to cultivate 
her stolen dominions in the West — When 
I reflect on these, I hesitate not for a 
moment to believe that the Almighty 
will finally separate America from Brit- 
ain. Call it Independency or what you 
will, if it is the cause of God and human- 
ity, it will go on." 

When this was written, the next step 
was not a long one. In fact, Paine had 
already outlined the pamphlet that was 
to make him famous. During this same 
month Dr. Franklin urged him to write 
a history of the times ; but, preferring to 
postpone the scheme for the present, he 
brought his manuscript to completion. 
He showed it to Dr. Eush and one or 
two intimate friends, and asked their 



THOMAS PAINE 19 

advice concerning the crucial difficulty 
of publication. One or two publishers 
courteously declined to make the ex- 
periment ; but the manuscript was ac- 
cepted by Eobert Bell, a Scotch repub- 
lican of sturdy stripe. On January 10, 
1775, Common Sense was offered to the 
public. 

~So political tract was ever better 
shaped to serve its purpose. It was elo- 
quent ; but its influence with the people 
lay in the simple, practical wisdom of its 
reasoning. Starting with a philosophic 
admission of the evil inherent in all gov- 
ernment, Paine assailed the logical ab- 
surdity of hereditary power, exposed the 
king's vicious system of maladministra- 
tion, and clearly showed how little mercy 
rebels must expect from "The Eoyal 
Brute of Great Britain.' 7 Then, revers- 
ing the shield, he pictured the natural 
future of America governed by Ameri- 
cans, and, in the practical language 
which characterizes the whole pamphlet, 



20 THOMAS PAINE 

set forth plainly the power of the people 
to be free and independent, if they will. 
This was the true, the only solution. 
Americans must not be rebels, but a 
nation doing battle for its rights. Here 
and there the argument was crude ; but, 
as a whole, Common Sense was, as "Wash- 
ington said, sound and unanswerable. 

If Paine underestimated the difficulties 
which blocked the path of the new com- 
monwealth, his hopefulness only aided 
the cause. BelFs presses could not be- 
gin to meet the demand, and Paine gave 
his copyright to every colony of the 
thirteen. In April no less than 120,000 
copies of Common Sense flooded the coun- 
try, from Maine to the Carolinas ; and 
where it went it brought conviction. 

When the pamphlet reached New 
York City, the Provincial Congress was 
assembled there. Toryism was in the 
ascendant. The first member to read 
the pamphlet was alarmed at its temer- 
ity, and proposed to several of his col- 



THOMAS PAXSTE 21 

leagues to hold a private meeting and 
discuss Paine' s position. This meeting 
was held ; but opposing arguments were 
not forthcoming, and it was thought best 
not to attempt an answer. At this con- 
fession of weakness the patriots in the 
assembly took courage and the fight con- 
tinued, until the discovery of Governor 
Try on' s conspiracy to kidnap Washing- 
ton turned the tide in their favor. The 
New York delegates to Congress were 
not instructed to vote against the Decla- 
ration of Independence. 

Paine, wisely thinking that the name 
of an Englishman lately arrived in 
America had best be withheld, had 
signed his pamphlet simply u Common 
Sense" ; and the work was promptly 
fathered upon Franklin. 

"How could you," said a lady of 
Tory sympathies, "speak of his Majesty 
so untowardly as 'The Eoyal Brute of 
Britain'?" 

"Madam," replied the diplomatist, 



22 THOMAS PAINE 

"had it been I, I should never have so 

dishonored brute creation. " 

On June 8 Eichard Henry Lee of Vir- 
ginia offered the resolution that " these 
united colonies are and of right ought to 
be free and independent States " ; and 
four days later a committee of five 
members, headed by Jefferson, was ap- 
pointed to consider the manner of the 
Declaration. Paine was now a marked 
man to those who knew the author- 
ship of Common Seme; and Jefferson, 
whose intimacy with him dates from 
this time, seems to have sought his ad- 
vice concerning the language of the in- 
strument. There is little evidence to 
show that words of Paine' s were actually 
incorporated by Jefferson ; bub his in- 
fluence appeared in a fine passage of the 
preliminary draft denouncing slavery. 
This clause was born before its time, and 
did not live in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

A pack of Tory pamphleteers were 



THOMAS PAINE 23 

soon barking at the heels of Common 
Sense ; but the only writer whose argu- 
ment deserved an answer was the Eev. 
Dr. William Smith, a man of some at- 
tainments and president of the college 
which afterward became the University 
of Pennsylvania. Writing under the 
pseudonym of "Cato," he made a 
plausible appeal to peace-loving citizens 
against the irrevocable step, and urged 
delay, at least until the arrival of the 
proposals which Admiral Lord Howe 
was even then bringing with him from 
England. 

Paine knew the danger of such argu- 
ments to Quaker minds, which could not 
believe that his Majesty 7 s most generous 
terms were unconditional surrender, 
with an added assurance of further con- 
sideration of their grievances; and he 
answered "Cato" in three vigorous 
letters signed "The Forester. " 

But the tide of independence was 
risen too high to be stemmed by pro- 



24 THOMAS PAINE 

crastination. On the evening of July 
4 the Declaration was unanimously 
adopted by every State except New 
York. 



II. 

While the gentlemen of Congress 
were signing the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, Paine enlisted under the flag 
of the United States. After serving in 
a " flying camp" of temporary volun- 
teers, he joined the command of Gen- 
eral Nathanael Greene, then in garrison 
at Fort Lee, which crowned the " Pali- 
sades" of the Hudson Biver. 

The most disastrous campaign of the 
war was in progress. Washington, 
unable to hold New York against the 
fleet and army of the Howes, evacuated 
the city in the middle of September, 
and, after a stand on Harlem Heights, 
fell back upon White Plains. Fort Lee 
in New Jersey and Fort Washington on 
the New York bank opposite it were 
now the only barriers to a British ad- 
I vance up the river. Fort Washington 
was patently untenable ; but Congress, 
with the military sagacity inherent in 



26 THOMAS PAINE 

legislatures, strongly urged That it be 
held. Unhappily, Washington was ab- 
sent. Greene obeyed orders against his 
better judgment ; and on November 16 
Paine beheld from the ramparts of Fort 
Lee the capture of three thousand Con- 
tinental veterans. Three days later the 
British crossed the Hudson in force 
above Fort Lee ; and the startled garri- 
son, leaving their blankets in their tents 
and their kettles on their fires, fell tu- 
multuously back upon the main army, 
which was then in New Jersey. 

The dismal retreat continued. When 
the army reached Newark, its chiefs 
were looking demoralization in the face ; 
and there it was that Paine began his 
first Crisis, writing at night, for his day 
was filled with a soldier's duties. On 
December 19 it was published in the 
Pennsylvania Journal, and a few hours 
later copies were despatched to the front. 
Washington had fixed on Christmas 
Day, at one hour before daybreak, for 



THOMAS PAIKE 27 

the forlorn hope of an attack on the 
British centre at Trenton. On the 
23d the Crisis reached him. He read it, 
and, instantly feeling its power, gave 
orders to have it read that very evening 
before every corporal's guard of his 
dejected army. Most of the rank and 
file believed the end to be approaching. 
And now, on the eve of their last des- 
perate opportunity, when hope seemed 
hopeless, they listened to these words : — 
u These are the times which try men's 
souls. The summer soldier and the sun- 
shine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink 
from the service of his country ; but 
he that stands it now deserves the love 
and thanks of man and woman. Ty- 
ranny like hell is not easily conquered ; 
yet we have this consolation with us, 
that the harder the conflict, the more 
glorious the triumph: what we obtain 
too cheap, we esteem too lightly j 'tis 
dearness only that gives everything its 
value. Heaven knows how to put a 



28 THOMAS PAINE 

proper price upon its goo* ; and it 
would be strange indeed if so celestial 
an article as freedom should not be 
highly rated. " 

The next night "Washington crossed 
the Delaware. His little army lost four 
men and took a thousand prisoners. 
The crisis had passed. 

Paine 5 s appeal had been signed 
" Common Sense," but the secret was 
no secret now. Scarcely a month after 
the appearance of the first Crisis he pub- 
lished a second in the form of a letter of 
advice to Lord Howe ; and, as in the 
case of all his American pamphlets, he 
gave the proceeds to the cause of inde- 
pendence. At the beginning of the 
new year his services were officially ac- 
knowledged by an appointment as sec- 
retary of a commission sent by Congress 
to treat with the Indians at Easton, 
Pennsylvania. The mission was success- 
ful ; and on April 17, when the Con- 
gressional Committee of Foreign Affairs 



THOMAS PAINE 29 

was first formally constituted, Paine 
was elected its secretary, at the modest 
salary of $70 a month. 

The office was no sinecure, but 
Paine's capacity for work was uncom- 
mon. Much of the time he spent with 
the army, acting as a volunteer aide-de- 
camp to General Greene ; #nd, when 
he was requested by the Assembly of 
Pennsylvania to furnish it with regular 
intelligence of the movements of the 
army, he at once complied. Besides all 
this, he found time to celebrate the 
third anniversary of Lexington by an- 
other Crisis, in which he advised the 
Continental government to exact an 
oath of allegiance from its subjects, and 
to increase its revenues at the expense 
of all who refused. 

During the summer of 1777, while 
Burgoyne was marching southward to 
his destruction, there was but little 
fighting between the armies of Wash- 
ington and Howe. But with the au- 



30 THOMAS PAINE 

tumn came the British success at 
Brandywine. The road to Philadel- 
phia lay open, and Congress fled in 
consternation to Lancaster. Paine still 
hoped that the city might be saved, and 
urged a general rising of citizens in its 
defence. But the plan seemed impracti- 
cable to the^ authorities ; and on Septem- 
ber 21 Paine left Philadelphia, which 
was occupied by Cornwallis five days 
later. The battle of Germantown fol- 
lowed, and Paine rejoined the army just 
as its victory was turned into incompre- 
hensible defeat. 

His services were soon required. 
General Howe had turned his atten- 
tion to the American strongholds on 
the river Delaware, Forts Mercer and 
Mifflin. A sharp but unsuccessful as- 
sault was made on Fort Mercer; and, 
when the attack was renewed with the 
assistance of the fleet, Paine, with Colo- 
nel Christopher Greene, was despatched 
down the Delaware in an open boat to 



THOMAS PAINE 31 

learn the condition of the garrison at 
Fort Mifflin. Under fire from the 
British batteries along the shore, it 
was a trying experience ; but Paine ac- 
quitted himself with credit. IsTot long 
afterward, however, both forts fell into 
the hands of the enemy ; and, after some 
manoeuvring, the army went into its 
unhappy quarters at Valley Forge. 

At this period Paine had reached a 
singular height of prestige and popular- 
ity, but a curious train of events was 
then in progress which had a melan- 
choly influence upon his career. 

When first the American colonies 
revolted, " Great Britain and 1763 " 
meant to Frenchmen much what u Ger- 
many and 1871 " means to-day. Ger- 
many has torn two provinces from 
France : Britain seized two empires. 
An opportunity for revenge seemed at 
length to have arisen ; and Vergennes, 
the crafty minister for foreign affairs, 
casting about him for the safest means 



32 THOMAS PAINE 

to obtain it, bethought himself of Beau- 
marchais, who was known to be in sym- 
pathy with the American cause. The 
author of Figaro was adept at mak- 
ing a plot in history as in comedy. 
He was keen, quite free from scruples, 
and, as an adventurer of shadowy repu- 
tation, might be disavowed at conven- 
ience. Beaumarchais met Vergennes 
half-way; and between them it was 
agreed that the playwright should ad- 
dress a series of letters to the king, 
inviting his Majesty to advance a mil- 
lion livres to aid the colonies. Ver- 
gennes himself cared not a fig for Amer- 
ica. His object was not to end, but to 
prolong the war. 

Peace between France and England 
was profound as diplomacy could make 
it, and of course official relations with 
rebels were unspeakable. So Beaumar- 
chais suggested that the money be ad- 
vanced through a fictitious merchant, 
to be paid for in real tobacco, with all 



THOMAS PAINE 33 

the circumstances of a genuine business 
transaction. The playwright's zeal for 
the colonies was sincere, but it was not 
unselfish. From the first he determined 
that revenge for France and liberty for 
America must co-operate to line his coat. 
He therefore proposed that half the sum 
be sent to America in money and half in 
supplies, to be bartered to the colonies, 
at far more than their face value, for 
good Virginian tobacco, hoping that 
a little care might make some of the 
profit go where, in his opinion, it was 
most needed. This delicate proposition 
he conveyed to the king in language 
which implied that the French ex- 
chequer was to be the gainer in a 
commercial venture. 

Louis considered the proposition, but 
the game was hazardous. He hesitated, 
and the fertile Beaumarchais brought 
new influence to bear. He had put him- 
self into communication with Arthur 
Lee, then acting as secret agent for 



34 THOMAS PAINE 

Virginia in London ; and to him lie had 
described the burning altruism of France 
in language that would have done honor 
to Figaro himself. The gift must indeed 
smell a little of snuff and tobacco ; but 
this was dictated by prudence, and the 
king's delicate conception of honor. 
Arthur Lee was duly grateful ; and, to 
clinch the bargain, he wrote an appeal 
to the king, offering to France, in return 
for her aid, a secret and advantageous 
treaty of commerce. The king's sympa- 
thies were with the struggling colonies, 
his queen pleaded their cause, and this 
offer decided him. Early in June a 
million livres were made over to Beau- 
marchais. He reported the transaction 
to Lee, and Lee at once despatched a 
messenger to convey the pleasant news 
to Congress. 

A month later a new actor complicated 
the plot. Silas Deane, a prominent 
citizen of Connecticut, came to Paris as 
a commercial agent of Congress. Lee at 



THOMAS PAINE 35 

once informed him that the million had 
already been paid to Beaumarchais ; but 
that worthy denied up and down that he 
had touched the money, and represented 
to Deane that the business was a bona 
fide commercial enterprise. The colonies 
had plenty of tobacco for export. The 
difficulty was to find a purchaser willing 
to repay them in contraband of war. 
Beaumarchais' comedy firm (Boderigue 
Hortalez & Co. he called it) would 
thus do America a very real service. 
Just how much Deane understood of 
the real truth will never be accurately 
known. He certainly appeared to be 
convinced by Beaumarchais' story, and 
signed a formal contract binding the 
United States to make some returns 
for the supplies within six months and 
to pay the balance within a year. 

Beaumarchais prosecuted the business 
with energy. Three ships were soon 
sent to America, though but one of them 
reached its destination. Later on 7 he 



36 THOMAS PAINE 

quietly despatched an agent to Congress 
to collect the bill ; while Deane with 
remarkable self-importance assumed the 
credit of the entire transaction, and fur- 
ther busied himself in securing the ser- 
vices of various foreign officers for the 
American army. 

Soon after Silas Deane' s departure 
from America, Congress instructed Dr. 
Franklin and Arthur Lee to join him in 
Paris ; and the three were constituted a 
commission for formal negotiations with 
France. The king's ministers were now 
inclining toward an alliance and commer- 
cial treaty ; and, with diplomatic forget- 
fulness of the little understanding with 
Beaumarchais, they assured the com- 
missioners that the supplies were a 
free gift to America. The commission 
in turn transmitted the information to 
Congress. 

Congress was delighted with such 
stores as arrived ; but, when the bill 
came, indorsed by Deane, the affair 



THOMAS PAINE 37 

looked suspicious. Deane' s behavior in 
regard to the selection of foreign officers 
was unsatisfactory, and he was summa- 
rily recalled. 

When he appeared before Congress, 
however, the case against him was worse. 
The letter sent by the commissioners had 
been purloined on its way to this coun- 
try, though other letters in the same 
packet had remained untouched ; and 
Congress had been informed of its con- 
tents only by a duplicate copy enclosed 
with the documents of the French alli- 
ance, which had since been consummated. 
Deane was asked to produce the vouchers 
for his contracts, and replied that he 
had left them abroad. He further ad- 
mitted being under personal pecuniary 
obligation to Beaumarchais. The affair 
smelled of fraud. It was lucky for 
Deane that he had powerful friends in 
Congress, and that President John Jay 
was among them. 

Two hearings were granted Deane, but 



38 THOMAS PAINE 

lie failed to clear himself; and a third 
audience was denied him. Furious at 
this slight, he published an article im- 
pugning the honesty of Congress, at- 
tacking Arthur Lee, and arrogating to 
himself the credit of work accomplished 
before his arrival. 

Paine' s blood was up. As secretary 
of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, he 
knew Congressional secrets which, as 
Gouverneur Morris said, Congress was too 
wise to trust itself with. He was con- 
vinced that an attempt was afoot to rob 
the poverty-stricken exchequer. If any 
creditor was to be paid, it was France 
herself ; and France could afford to wait 
for her money. Furthermore, he feared 
the effects which Deane's attack on Con- 
gress might have upon the people. 

Accordingly, on December 15, 1778, 
he rushed into the thickest of his neigh- 
bor's fray, and published a statement to 
the effect that, however the supplies had 
been secured, it was certainly not thanks 



THOMAS PAINE 39 

to Mr. Deane, who had reached Paris 
after the million had been provided. 
This was bad enough, considering how 
spotless was the French king's honor, 
and how very close to the mud. But 
worse came a fortnight later, when Paine 
gave to the public the unvarnished truth, 
that the supplies had been furnished by 
the French government a year and more 
before the alliance was concluded. Here 
was to-do in plenty. Every word that 
Paine said in this regard was true, and 
every word marked the Christian Maj- 
esty of France a most unchristian liar. 
Gerard, the French minister, who seems 
himself to have been interested in the 
Beaumarchais claim, made complaint, 
and demanded a retraction. Congress 
was in a quandary. To accuse Paine 
formally meant explanations, and expla- 
nations were precisely what were not 
wanted. 

Under the guidance of Jay an ingen- 
ious plan of action was hit upon. Paine 



40 THOMAS PAINE 

was summoned before Congress, and 
asked whether he had written the objec- 
tionable articles. He answered, i c Yes, ? 7 
and before he could utter another sylla- 
ble was commanded to withdraw. Two 
memorials which he presented to Con- 
gress were suppressed ; and, although a 
motion for his dismissal was lost on a tie 
vote, he would not submit to be cen- 
sured, unheard, and resigned his office. 
Jay sent profuse apologies to Gerard, 
and assured him of the perfect incredu- 
lity with which Congress had listened 
to Paine' s charges. Once again the 
king's honor shone untarnished. 

The controversy concerning Deane, 
aggravated by Paine, has never ended. 
It is clear that Paine acted honestly, 
for his oath as secretary bound him to 
secrecy solely concerning matters which 
he should be directed to keep secret. 
But it is equally clear that he was guilty 
of colossal imprudence. Hitherto he 
had gone from success to success. Nat- 



THOMAS PAINE 41 

urally a vain man, lie had come to be- 
lieve his influence irresistible. Urged 
by honorable considerations, he felt no 
reluctance toward meddling in the affairs 
of others, and displayed in his action a 
striking want of the common sense with 
which the public still identified his work. 
Had Paine learned wisdom at Franklin's 
feet, he might have been one of the su- 
preme figures of his time. 

Once again poor Paine had to return 
to the starting-point of the race. In his 
penury he applied to Mr. Owen Biddle, 
of Philadelphia, for a common clerkship, 
and reverted to his former plan of a his- 
tory of the Eevolution. He proposed 
also to issue a collected edition of his 
works. But, for this, money was essen- 
tial ; and Paine, relying upon the value 
of his services, applied to the executive 
council of the State of Pennsylvania for 
a loan of £1,500. The council, fearful 
of offending France, obsequiously asked 
permission of her minister before reply- 



42 THOMAS PAINE 

ing to the request, and, when this 
was accorded, proposed that, in lieu of 
the loan, Paine should be made clerk of 
the Assembly. His election took place 
on November 2, 1779 ; and it is an inter- 
esting coincidence that on the same day 
an act was introduced, the preamble of 
which Paine himself had had the honor 
of writing, to abolish slavery forever in 
the State of Pennsylvania. Four months 
later the act became law, adding, as 
Paine said, one more step to universal 
civilization. 

About this time Paine considered an 
audacious and fantastic scheme for a 
descent upon England. He proposed to 
go incognito, and to quicken public 
sympathy with America by another 
pamphlet after the manner of Common 
Sense. Fortunately, he was dissuaded 
from the design by General Greene, who 
thought Paine' s usefulness in America 
was not yet over. And, indeed, it was 
not. 



THOMAS PAINE 43 

Throughout 1779 a train of disasters 
had befallen the American cause. In 
May, 1780, Joseph Heed, president of 
the Pennsylvania Assembly, received a 
letter from Washington, which he bade 
Paine, as clerk, read aloud to the mem- 
bers. " I can assure you/ 7 wrote Wash- 
ington, with terrible truth, u every idea 
you can form of our distress will fall 
short of the reality. There is such a 
combination of circumstances to exhaust 
the patience of the soldiery that it be- 
gins at length to be worn out, and we 
see in every line of the army the most 
serious features of mutiny and sedition. " 

The Assembly listened in despair, and 
the letter moved Paine profoundly. Of 
his own accord he proposed a public 
subscription, and headed it with $500 of 
his meagre salary. In the evening a 
meeting was held, the subscription was 
decided upon, and the energetic Eobert 
Morris took it in charge. The sum of 
£300,000 was raised, and ultimately be- 



U THOMAS PAINE 

came the foundation of the Bank of 
North America. The soldiers were paid, 
and another crisis was averted. That 
same summer the University of Pennsyl- 
vania honored Paine with the degree of 
Master of Arts. 

The crisis had been averted, but not 
passed. During the summer the " Con- 
tinental " dollar fell till it passed current 
at sixteen cents and less. Samuel Adams, 
who was no exquisite, paid $2,000 for 
a hat and suit of clothes ; and Paine 
himself gave $300 for a pair of woollen 
stockings. Congress, unable to enforce 
taxes, was powerless ; and the colonies, 
discouraged with five years of fighting, 
had no conception of their own re- 
sources. In this dark season Paine pub- 
lished his Crisis Extraordinary, which 
gave to masses of people their first clear 
idea that ample wealth to push the war 
to a conclusion was in the country, and 
comforted them with proofs that Eng- 
lishmen were crushed by taxes still 
heavier than their own. 



THOMAS PAINE 45 

In the autumn of 1780 Paine relin- 
quished his Assembly clerkship, hoping 
to be able to work upon his history. 
But his attention was soon distracted, 
and presently he busied himself in draw- 
ing up a new proposal for a loan from 
France. The scheme was discouraged 
at the time, but it got abroad ; and Con- 
gress decided to send Colonel John Lau- 
rens as a special emissary to the French 
government. At his personal request 
Paine accompanied him. The mission 
was successful ; and Laurens was enabled 
. to send Washington promises which were 
of the utmost assistance, as he gathered 
his strength for the supreme effort of 
Yorktown. On August 25, 1781, Laur- 
ens and Paine returned to Boston with 
two and a half million livres in cash 
and a ship loaded with military stores. 
Laurens rejoined the army ; and in Oc- 
tober Paine, penniless as usual, wrote 
to the colonel that he should be glad to 
send on his boots if he could only scrape 



46 THOMAS PAINE 

up money enough, to pay the boot- 
maker ! 

With the capitulation of Yorktown 
the fortunes of war were secure, but 
for Paine the future looked black. He 
turned to Washington for assistance, 
and Washington, with, the aid of Bob- 
ert Morris and Eobert Livingston, se- 
cured him a position as a salaried writer 
on national affairs. 

On April 18, 1783, General Washing- 
ton announced the cessation of hostili- 
ties ; and on the following day, the 
eighth anniversary of Lexington, Paine 
published his last Crisis, beginning with 
the comfortable words, 1 1 The times which 
tried men's souls are over." 

Paine' s work now seemed done. He 
retired to a little house which he had 
bought at Bordentown, New Jersey ; bat 
he was soon called from his retreat by 
a kindly invitation from Washington to 
visit his headquarters. Nor did the 
general's gratitude to the author of the 



THOMAS PAINE 47 

Grim end here. Paine, who had no 
feeling akin to false shame in pressing 
his deserts, had written to Congress, call- 
ing the attention of the honorable mem- 
bers to a balance still owing him on ac- 
count of the depreciation of his former 
salary as secretary to the Committee of 
Foreign Affairs. But Congress, unwill- 
ing to rake up the secrets of Silas Deane, 
which it had buried so carefully, was not 
inclined to look favorably upon the peti- 
tion. Paine appealed to Washington, 
and "Washington championed his claim 
with ardor. The State of New York 
presented Paine as a token of public 
esteem with the fine house and estate of 
the Loyalist Frederick Devoe. In ad- 
vocating the propriety of feeding the 
public treasury from the pockets of rich 
Tories, Paine had once quoted a saying 
of King James, of thrifty memory, "A 
rich man makes a bonny traitor " ; and 
now he saw no reason for changing his 
opinion. Pennsylvania followed suit 



48 THOMAS PAINE 

and made Paine a gift of £500 in cash, 
but Washington's hope that Virginia 
would do likewise was frustrated by an 
old grudge. In an early pamphlet, 
Paine, insisting upon the supremacy of 
the central government, had contended 
that certain territory to which Virginia 
had a doubtful claim properly belonged 
to the United States. He was a pioneer 
of union, and he suffered for it now. 

The succeeding years were happy ones 
for Paine. Secure from want, he once 
more postponed work on his history, and 
gave himself up to one of the darling 
projects of his life, — the designing of an 
iron bridge. 

Throughout Europe, bridges rested 
upon piers ; but in America the spring 
ice-floes were found to interfere seriously 
with this form of construction. Turning 
to nature for guidance, Paine watched 
the strong and beautiful curves by which 
the spider holds in place a web a hun- 
dred times more delicate than fine-spun 



THOMAS PAINE 49 

silk, and then with his own hands 
wrought the lines into an iron model. 
Such a curve as this, springing from 
solid foundations in either bank, should, 
he hoped, bridge the broad Schuylkill 
with a single arch. There was genius 
in the design, and people mistrusted it. 
Dr. Franklin comprehended the model, 
and pronounced it practicable ; but the 
scheme of the bridge was never approved 
by the Pennsylvania legislature. 

Paine' s imagination was not confined 
to his bridge. He amused himself in- 
venting planing machines, smokeless 
candles, and a dozen other ingenious 
contrivances. Nor were his interests 
wholly scientific. In 1786 rose one of 
those spasmodic crazes for cheap money 
which have so often afflicted this country. 
The attack was directed against the Bank 
of North America, and a violent effort 
was made to have its charter repealed. 
In a lucid and intelligent pamphlet, 
Paine set forth the fallacies of his oppo- 



50 THOMAS PAINE 

nents, and the sacredness of private con- 
tract against the power of legislative 
majorities. It was this pamphlet which 
turned the tide. 

For a long time Paine had desired to 
revisit his native land. Now he was 
doubly anxious to cross the water, in 
order to obtain the opinion of the best 
French engineers in regard to his bridge. 
When the delegates to the constitutional 
convention were elected, Paine was not 
among them. The omission was a wise 
one. Compromise was the only hope of 
union, and the spirit of it was not in 
Paine. His presence was no longer re- 
quired in America. Taking with him 
his well-beloved model and new letters 
of introduction from Franklin, he set 
sail for France in the spring of 1787. 
He meant to be away a twelvemonth, at 
most. It was fifteen years afterward 
that he returned. 



III. 

Paine had warm friends at Paris in 
Jefferson, the American minister, and in 
the Marquis de la Fayette, while his 
brief visit of three years before had made 
him known to many persons of promi- 
nence. Besides, like other things Ameri- 
can, Common Sense was much in vogue in 
the French capital, where it had appeared 
shorn of questionable references to the 
divine right of kings. By the Academy 
Paine was received in complimentary 
fashion, his bridge was lauded, and he 
was advised to go to London and display 
it before the Boyal Society. This he 
determined to do. 

But he had other and larger inter- 
ests. Ever since a republic had been 
established in the IsTew World, he had 
dreamed of becoming the great emanci- 
pator in a revolution of Europe. Now 
that the times were ripening in France, 
he shared the hopes of idealists like Con- 



52 THOMAS PAINE 

dorcet and Brissot, and felt an ardent 
sympathy with the heroic liberalism of 
Burke and Fox. The British govern- 
ment he abhorred, and its policy of cease- 
less enmity to France was to him an un- 
natural crime against humanity. The 
English people were not, could not, be 
party to it ; but, to understand the aims 
of Frenchmen, they must know France 
better. 

Full of self-confidence, he drew up a 
letter denouncing "the madness of war, 
and the wretched impolicy of two na- 
tions, like England and France, continu- 
ally worrying each other to no other end 
than that of a mutual increase of bur- 
dens and taxes " ; and this he found 
means to lay before the Cardinal Minister 
de Brienne, who readily lent his signa- 
ture. With this letter and the model of 
his bridge, Paine crossed the Channel. 

In England one of his first cares was 
to visit Thetford, where he found his 
mother, at the age of ninety- one still 



THOMAS PAINE 53 

living, and provided for her wants by 
a small annuity. In London he was 
warmly received by Sir Joseph Banks, 
president of the Eoyal Society ; and he 
soon made arrangements with a great 
firm of iron manufacturers to have a 
bridge erected after his model and set 
up for exhibition, hoping that he might 
be employed as engineer to bridge the 
Thames. 

When Paine called upon Burke and 
showed him his letter, the statesman re- 
ceived him with kindly interest. In 1788 
the rising flood in France was not yet a 
deluge, and Burke still sympathized with 
the hopes of the Eevolution. Paine felt 
that here, indeed, was a leader to be 
loved and trusted. Fox, in opposition, 
he had always admired, now he met him 
as a friend ; and, thinking doubtless of 
his stay-making past, he wrote to Jeffer- 
son with some complacency of his inti- 
jiaacy with these great men, of invita- 
I tions from my Lord Fitzwilliam, and of 
visits to the Duke of Portland. 



54 THOMAS PAINE 

During the first three years of his life 
abroad Paine divided his time between 
France and England, following the drift 
of political sentiment with intense in- 
terest. In May, 1789, the States-General 
met in Paris ; and in the following July 
the Bastille was torn to pieces. Paine' s 
exultation was supreme; and, when la 
Fayette wished to send the key of the 
fortress by him as a gift to Washington, 
he saw in it the symbolic ideal of his 
aspirations. Although actual outbreaks 
during the next year were few, the half- 
repressed excitement in France continu- 
ally increased and Europe vaited in 
suspense. Burke's sympathy with the 
Eevolution had long been struggling 
with his prophetic vision. The Eevolu- 
tionary clubs in England had startled him. 
At last, fearing what each day might 
bring forth and looking far ahead to the 
time when a despot must arise in France, 
he published his famous Reflections on the 
Revolution of France, This work, so ad- 



THOMAS PAINE 55 

mired and so detested, is a medley of 
genius and ignorance. Burke utterly 
miscomprehended the social causes of the 
Kevolution, but he saw its destiny more 
clearly than any man alive. He dwelt 
with passionate pathos on the sufferings 
of a few thousands, and was blind to the 
deliverance of milli ^ , The book pro- 
duced an immediate and wonderful 
effect. "It's a good book," said the 
king, with Hanoverian wit* — "a very 
good book. Every gentleman ought to 
read it" The Whigs felt that it forever 
divided Burke's path from their own. 

When Burke had spoken against the 
Eevolution in Parliament early in the 
year, Paine had been amazed and 
grieved ; but this blow struck him like 
a murderous assault. Burke was the 
lost leader who had sold himself for a 
pension, the great apostate fallen like 
Lucifer from heaven. Paine was at 
Islington at the time. He immediately 
began to write a reply. 



56 THOMAS PAINE 

Never, perhaps, was a great pamphlet 
more greatly answered than Burke's 
Reflexions by Bights of Man. This work 
was the first text-book of republicanism. 
Paine saw the future through a glass 
darkly ; but his conception of the pres- 
ent was infinitely truer, infinitely nobler 
than Burke's. To Burke the Bevolution 
was a revolt against persons : to Paine 
it was an uprising for eternal principles. 
Like Bousseau, he believed government 
a social compact. It must be renewed 
from generation to generation. Burke 
looked upon the English Bevolution of 
1688 as the Jews looked upon Sinai ; 
and the Bill of Bights was as the tables 
of the law cut in everlasting stone. 
Paine believed it a crime to hold men 
bound by bargains clinched with their 
fathers. An hereditary crown is as 
great an absurdity as an hereditary lau- 
reate. Shall the three houses of Old 
Sarum return two members till eternity, 
and shall Manchester never be repre- 



THOMAS PAINE 57 

sented because its birthright was sold 
two hundred years ago t 

The splendor of Burke's eloquence 
was lost upon the democrat. The pas- 
sage on the queen, which Burke had 
wetted with his tears, was the glitter of 
the actor's tinsel. "The Quixot age of 
chivalry nonsense was gone ' ' for Paine. 

Mr. Johnson, a radical publisher, un- 
dertook to issue Paine' s pamphlet 5 but 
his radicalism was judicious, and only 
a few copies were issued before he re- 
linquished the contract. Another pub- 
lisher, Jordan, continued the work ; and 
Bights of Man was soon familiar in men's 
mouths. The radical societies hailed it 
as a fifth gospel. Eomney, the painter, 
Sharp, the engraver, Brand Holies, Lord 
Edward Fitz-Gerald, Home Tooke, and 
a crowd of apostles preached it every- 
where. 

In America, where parties were now 
divided scarcely less sharply than in 
England, Bights of Man reaped a whirl- 



58 THOMAS PAI^E 

wind. Without troubling himself to 
obtain permission, Paine had dedi- 
cated his pamphlet to the President, 
though even then Washington dis- 
trusted France, and was secretly in- 
clined to a commercial treaty with 
Great Britain. 

An odd incident re- enforced the im- 
pression that Paine had the official in- 
dorsement of the American government. 
A copy of Bights of Man had been 
sent to Jefferson, at that time Secretary 
of State. He read it with delight ; and 
in forwarding it to a brother of the 
printer, as he had been requested to do, 
he enclosed a private note expressing 
his satisfaction. The printer himself 
saw his opportunity, and calmly pub- 
lished the book with the Secretary's 
indorsement as a preface. Here, then, 
was a book fiercely assailing the English 
Constitution, dedicated to the President, 
and introduced by the Secretary of 
State. Adams, Jay, and the English- 



THOMAS PAINE 59 

loving Federalists were horrified. The 
British minister asked for explanations ; 
and Jefferson, while he could not dis- 
avow his sentiments, assured him that 
the publication of his note had not been 
authorized. But the mischief was done ; 
and Paine' s book, the triple essence 
of democracy, became the focus of 
party strife. In their enthusiasm, Jef- 
ferson, Madison, and Edmund Eandolph 
pressed Paine for a cabinet appointment 
as successor to Osgood, the Postmaster- 
General. To this the President pru- 
dently refused to agree ; and, ignoring 
the embarrassing compliment of the 
dedication of Eights of Man, he wrote to 
Paine some time later, politely thanking 
him for "the token of his remem- 
brance ?? in forwarding fifty copies of his 
pamphlet. 

No sooner was his work published in 
England than Paine hastened to Paris 
to have it translated into French. The 
dominating figure of Mirabeau had just 



60 THOMAS PAINE 

passed from the scene. With him dis- 
appeared the last hope for monarchy in 
Prance. In June, 1791, the foolish king 
attempted to escape. Paris was in ebul- 
lition. "You see/' remarked Paine to 
a friend, "the absurdity of monarchi- 
cal government. Here will be a whole 
nation disturbed by the folly of one 
man." To bring back the runaway 
king seemed to Paine the height of 
unwisdom, but brought back he was ; 
and on June 25 Paine was among the 
crowd which read from every wall that 
"whoever applauds the king shall be 
flogged and whoever insults him shall 
be hanged." But, alone among the 
throng, Paine had neglected to pin his 
principles to his hat. He wore no tri- 
color cockade. Here was a traitor, self- 
confessed. The mob seized him ; some 
one shouted, "Aristocrat a la lan- 
terne!" and poor Paine, ignorant of 
the language and thunderstruck at 
such treatment from fellow-republicans, 



THOMAS PAINE 61 

was hustled roughly along. Happily, a 
man near him knew English. Quickly 
explaining the situation to Paine, he as- 
sured the crowd that their prisoner was 
guiltless; and Paine was free to go his 
way. 

Wherever revolution was, there was 
Paine also. With Brissot, dear to him 
as an apostle of abolition, with the hon- 
est and pedantic Condorcet, and two 
other enthusiasts, he formed the u Societe 
Eepublicaine," the secret membership 
of which was a conjecture of every club 
and salon. On the night of July 1 these 
five placarded Paris with republican 
manifestoes. One copy was even nailed 
to the door of the Assembly. A vio- 
lent debate within the Assembly fol- 
lowed, but it led to nothing ; and the 
society followed up its attack by issuing 
the first and only number of a republi- 
can newspaper, controverting the mon- 
archical notions of Abbe Sieyes, the 
most prolific writer of constitutions 
whom France has yet produced. 



62 THOMAS PAINE 

In the midst of the controversy which 
followed, Paine returned to England. 
The republican glory about his head 
had brightened with his achievements 
in France, and he at once became the 
centre of the radical reformers. It was 
proposed that the second anniversary 
of the fall of the Bastille should be cele- 
brated by lovers of liberty at the sign 
of the Crown and Anchor in London. 
But the authorities foolishly advised the 
landlord to deny the use of his public 
house for a perfectly legitimate meeting. 
This was patent interference with the 
right of free speech, and the reformers 
determined to make the most of it. A 
few days later they met at the Thatched 
House Tavern, and under the chairman- 
ship of Home Tooke adopted a manifesto 
which had previously been written by 
Paine. The " Address and Declaration 
of the Friends of Universal Peace and 
Liberty, " declared earnest sympathy 
with the French Eevolution, denounced 



THOMAS PAINE 63 

the extortionate taxation of the English 
people, and proclaimed the authority 
of reason and the right of free speech. 
It was a document such as might well 
precede revolution, and the government 
was on its guard. The ringleader, how- 
ever, was peaceable enough. He set- 
tled down in the household of his ad- 
mirer and friend, Thomas Eickman, 
bookseller, and devoted himself to the 
Second Part of Bights of Man. 

Paine could not, however, find it in 
him to refuse to be the guest of honor at 
a dinner of the radical "Eevolution 
Society. " The members rose to greet 
him, singing the triumphant chorus, 

" Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, 
Eights of Man and Paine resound." 

The climax of the evening came when 
Paine rose to make his speech. Eaising 
his glass, he looked about the waiting 
assemblage, and said, " Gentlemen, I 
give you the revolution of the world ! " 



64 THOMAS PAINE 

Before publishing the Second Part of 
Rights of Man, Paine waited for some 
time in hopes of a reply from Burke to 
his earlier pamphlet. That reply never 
came ; but in his Appeal from the Old to 
the New Whigs Burke quoted from Paine 
at length, and his single comment was 
that such ideas deserved one answer, — 
criminal justice. Paine himself had ex- 
pected prosecution, and regretted the 
inaction of the government. To play 
the martyr for a nation's liberties was 
not repugnant to his feelings, but he 
had a better motive in hoping for a 
trial. In that event the government 
must take its stand definitely across the 
pathway of liberty. If it lost the case, 
the victory was won. If it secured a con- 
viction, the decree must be registered in 
black and white, plain for men to see. 
For centuries of English history the law 
court has been a battle-ground of Eng- 
lish liberty. John Hampden fighting 
for his twenty shillings tells the story of 
the British Constitution. 



THOMAS PAINE 65 

In the Second Part of Bights of Man, 
Paine made his trial very certain. With 
the strength of conviction he arraigned 
the abuses of the Constitution ; and, with 
the eager enthusiasm of a republican 
while republics are young, he contrasted 
the light taxes of America with the 
intolerable burdens of the British tax- 
payer, and cited a hundred measures of 
reform. The whole tenor of his argu- 
ment demanded a new constitution, 
based on the rights of man, and enforced 
by representatives of the people. 

Impressed by the sales of Paine' s for- 
mer pamphlet, Chapman, a London pub- 
lisher, bid a thousand guineas for the 
manuscript ; but Paine, unwilling to 
put it in another's power to suppress or 
alter the work, refused the offer, and 
simply made a bargain with Chapman 
for his services. Chapman, however, 
after printing a certain portion of the 
work, grew frightened and declined to 
proceed. The manuscript was then given 



66 THOMAS PAINE 

to Mr. Jordan, of Fleet Street. Soon 
afterward Pitt introduced a bill for 
taxation reform ; and, as it incorporated 
several items of relief proposed by Paine, 
the latter suspected that Pitt had had 
access to his manuscript through the ob- 
sequious Chapman. This is not incredi- 
ble, but it is difficult to believe that the 
thousand guineas offered to Paine was a 
veiled ministerial bribe for suppressing 
the work. 

Poor, weak-kneed Jordan had many 
qualms ; but Paine stiffened his resolu- 
tion by giving him a note, explicitly 
avowing himself the author and publisher 
of Rights of Man, and further bade the 
printer refer inquirers straight to him. 
He was not disappointed. In May, 1792, 
a summons was served upon Jordan ; and 
the printer surrendered at discretion, 
giving up Paine' s note, and promising 
to plead guilty in the hope of pardon. 
The following week another summons 
was left at Paine' s London lodgings, and 



THOMAS PAINE 67 

the day this was done the king issued a 
proclamation against seditious writings. 
In the parliamentary debate which fol- 
lowed, Secretary Dundas declared that 
proceedings against the printer had been 
instituted because Paine was not to be 
found ; but the device was flimsy, and 
Paine at once addressed a letter to Dun- 
das, declaring his readiness to appear in 
court. The trial was fixed for June 8 ; 
but, greatly to Paine' s disappointment, 
it was subsequently postponed till De- 
cember, and in the mean time many 
events occurred. 

In the whole matter the ministry pro- 
ceeded with obvious reluctance. Paine 
had forced the issue on ground of his 
own choosing. Eeformation societies 
j were springing up all over the country. 
j The Society for Constitutional Informa- 
I tion, of which Home Tooke was the lead- 
i ing member, publicly thanked Paine 
| on the completion of each portion of 
his work • and, like many kindred 



68 THOMAS PAINE 

clubs, it assiduously circulated Bights of 
Man. The copyright was relinquished, 
and various publishers multiplied cheap 
editions. The conservative, well-to-do 
classes, alarmed at the turn of events in 
France, flocked to the support of the 
ministry; but great numbers of the 
people openly sympathized with the 
Eevolution and made Eights of Man 
their rallying cry. Nearly two hundred 
thousand copies of Part I. were already 
in circulation. No threats of violence 
were made, but Jacobinism was rampant. 
The government felt that any course but 
prosecution would be construed as sur- 
render. 

Meantime events were marching in 
France to the music of the u Marseil- 
laise." On August 10 a long day's 
work was done. The Tuileries was 
stormed, hereditary representation abol- 
ished, and a Convention called to make 
another constitution, the French panacea 
for earthly difficulties. On August 26 



THOMAS PAINE 69 

citizenship was conferred on various 
distinguished republicans of the world. 
Washington, Hamilton, Priestley, Wil- 
berforce, Kosciuszko, Paine, and many 
others were included. Paine' s books 
had made him a power in France. His 
persecution made him beloved. Four 
departments vied with each other for the 
honor of securing him as their represen- 
tative to the Convention. A deputy from 
Calais reached him first. Paine hesi- 
tated. He had put his hand to the 
plough, and the furrow was still incom- 
plete. On September 12 he spoke at a 
meeting of the "Friends of Liberty." 
The fever of revolution was upon him, 
and his speech transgressed all bounds 
of prudence. 

The next evening he met a number of 
his friends at the house of Johnson, the 
publisher. The talk was earnest and 
excited. Of the company was William 
Blake, whose religion was the rights of 
man. Poet and mystic as he was, Blake 



70 THOMAS PAINE 

was the prudent spirit among these vi- 
sionary enthusiasts. As Paine rose to go, 
he laid a hand upon his shoulder. 

"You must not go home," he said 
earnestly, "or you are a dead man." 

Mr. Frost, a good friend, took the 
same ground. He led Paine away, and 
together they made for Dover by a 
roundabout route. When they reached 
the wharf, a packet was making ready to 
sail ; but here a collector stopped them, 
and insisted upon overturning Paine' s 
baggage. The haste of the travellers 
was evident, and the man's suspicions 
were aroused. Thrusting his hands into 
a trunk, he drew forth a bundle of let- 
ters. The first he opened was the last 
note Paine had received from the Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

" It is very extraordinary," remarked 
Paine, "that George Washington can- 
not write me a letter of private friend- 
ship without its being subject to be 
read by a custom-house officer." Before 



THOMAS PAINE 71 

the fellow could answer, Frost clapped 
his hand over the paper, and, seizing it, 
told him to mind his business, and not 
read private letters. "But," added 
Frost, "I will read you a part of it." 
And then he read : " And as no one can 
feel a greater interest in the happiness of 
mankind than I do, it is the first wish of 
my heart that the enlightened policy 
of the present age may diffuse to all men 
those blessings to which they are entitled, 
and lay the foundation of happiness for 
future generations." 

This and the President's signature 
were too much for the custom-house 
official. He stood aside. The friends 
boarded the packet, which almost imme- 
diately sailed for Calais. Twenty min- 
utes later officers reached Dover, bearing 
a warrant for Paine' s arrest. 



IV. 

Paine was gone, but liis works re- 
mained behind him. As the trial ap- 
proached, excitement continually in- 
creased ; and Paine heightened it still 
more by a Parthian shot. His Address 
to the Addressers, a satirical eulogy on the 
perfection of the British Constitution, 
was everywhere received by radical en- 
thusiasts as completing Bights of Man. 
Nor were conservative men less stirred. 
George Chalmers, a clerk in the employ 
of the Government Board of Trade, was 
suborned to write a scurrilous biography 
of Paine. This accomplished liar pub- 
lished the work under the assumed name 
of " Francis Oldys," borrowing a ficti- 
tious " M.A." from the University of 
Pennsylvania to compete with Paine' s 
genuine degree. The slanders which he 
interwove with the story of Paine' s life 
were read, applauded, and frequently 
believed. 



THOMAS PAIXE 73 

Pamphleteers and cartoonists plied 
their trade. "The rebellious needle- 
man" was placarded about the country, 
with his Bights of Man under one arm 
and a pair of stays under the other. 
Sometimes the amusement was varied, 
and he was gibbeted and burned in 
effigy. Indeed, a malicious biographer 
would have us believe that the ladies of 
Lewes, where Paine had lived, were but 
voicing the feminine sentiment of Eng- 
land as they cried in their graceful way : 
u 'Od rot 'im! Let 'im come 'ere if 
he dast, an' we'll tell 'im what the rights 
of women is. We'll toss 'im in a blanket 
an' ring 'im out o' Lewes wi' our fry- 
ing-pans." 

The trial was appointed for December, 
18, 1792 ; and, to the chagrin of his 
friends and the surprise of the public, 
Thomas Erskine, attorney-general to the 
Prince of Wales, appeared as counsel for 
the defence. The government, however, 
took the precaution of committing the 



74 THOMAS PAINE 

case to a special jury, to be rewarded, as 
the judicious custom was, with an extra 
guinea a man and a dinner to boot in 
case of conviction. 

Before Lord Kenyon and a jury of 
twelve merchants, Sir Archibald Mac- 
donald, the attorney-general, opened 
the case for the crown. He began by 
reciting the charges against Thomas 
Paine, late of London, gentleman, | who 
"did wickedly, falsely, maliciously, 
scandalously and seditiously publish a 
certain book called Second Part of Bights 
of Man, containing many false, wicked, 
scandalous, malicious and seditious asser- 
tions. " 

The " libellous " passages were then 
set forth ; and, certainly, they were not 
without the ring of free speech. " All 
hereditary government," Paine had 
written, "is in its nature tyranny." 
And another of his dicta ran: "The 
time is not very distant when England 
will laugh at itself for sending to Hoi- 



THOMAS PAINE 75 

land, Hanover, Zell or Brunswick for 
men, at the expense of a million a year, 
who understood neither her laws, her 
language nor her interest, and whose 
capacities would scarcely have fitted 
them for the office of a parish con- 
stable." 

This, and much more, was read and 
discoursed upon ; and then Sir Archi- 
bald Macdonald passed on to the ques- 
tion of authorship. Of this there was 
no doubt. The attorney-general had in 
his hands the letter Paine had written 
to Jordan, but in his pocket was a more 
dangerous weapon. 

"I shall also produce," said he, "a 
letter which this gentleman was pleased 
to address to myself, in which letter he 
avows himself in so many words the 
author. . . . Now, gentlemen, with re- 
spect to his correspondence with me, or 
rather the letter written to me" — 

Erskine, who knew well what was 
coming, was on his feet in an instant, 



76 THOMAS PAINE 

and protested against admitting in evi- 
dence a letter which contained unequiv- 
ocal libel, but which had been written 
long subsequently to the matter then in 
court. 

"I am clearly of the opinion/' replied 
Lord Kenyon, " that, if it goes to prove 
that he is the author of this book, I can- 
not object to it." 

In that moment the fate of the case 
was decided. Here is part of the 
mad letter to which the jury listened : 
"The time, sir, is becoming too serious 
to play with court prosecutions and sport 
with national rights. . . . That the gov- 
ernment of England is as great, if not the 
greatest, perfection of fraud and corrup- 
tion that ever took place since govern- 
ments began is what you cannot be a 
stranger to, unless the constant habit of 
seeing it has blinded your senses. 

"Is it possible that you or I can be- 
lieve, or that reason can make other 
men believe, that the capacity of such a 



THOMAS PAINE 77 

man as Mr. Guelph or any of his profli- 
gate sons is necessary to the good of a 
nation? I speak to you as one man 
ought to speak to another ; and I know 
also that I speak what other people are 
beginning to think. 

"That you cannot obtain a verdict 
(and, if you do, it will signify nothing) 
without packing a jury, and we both 
know that such tricks are practised, is 
what I have very great reason to be- 
lieve. " 

Erskine rose to the measure of his 
greatness. In the face of certain defeat 
the attorney to the eldest of "Mr. 
Guelph' s profligate sons" explained to 
the jury that the libellous letter just 
read was entirely divorced from the 
case before them ; and then, in a wise, 
eloquent, and conciliatory argument, he 
pleaded for liberty of the press. Paine, 
he urged, was honestly upholding opin- 
ions he believed ; and, no matter how 
severe his strictures, he was not subject 



78 THOMAS PAINE 

to criminal justice unless it were proved 
" that at the time he so wrote, and at the 
time he so published, he did it, not con- 
templating the happiness, but seeking 
the misery of the human race." The 
advocate brought his long speech to a 
close in the words of Lucian's fable : — 

" You must all remember, gentlemen, 
the pleasant story in that fable respect- 
ing the countryman and Jupiter. They 
were conversing with great freedom and 
familiarity on the subjects of heaven and 
earth. The countryman listened with 
great attention and acquiesced in the con- 
versation, so long as Jupiter tried only 
to convince him by reason and argu- 
ment ; but the countryman happening 
to hint a doubt as to the truth and pro- 
priety of something Jupiter had ad- 
vanced, he instantly turned round and 
threatened him with his thunder. ( No/ 
says the countryman, 'if you up with 
your thunder, I believe you are in the 
wrong. You are always wrong when 



THOMAS PAINE 79 

you appeal to your thunder.' So, gen- 
tlemen, I cannot fight against the united 
voice of the people of England, and God 
forbid that I should. I am an obedient 
subject and servant of the law." 

When Erskine ceased, the attorney- 
general rose ; but the foreman of the 
jury saved him the trouble of a reply. 
Paine was found guilty of libel, and out- 
lawed. Such property as he had in 
England was seized, and the bridge on 
which so many hopes were built was 
torn down and sold. 

Nor did the government rest here. 
Erskine was deprived of his office. A 
dozen or more publishers were indicted 
for libel, many convictions were secured, 
and the unfortunate men were impris- 
oned or heavily fined. Even readers of 
the book were not safe. No wonder the 
town- crier of Bolton announced that in 
all his rounds he could find neither the 
rights of man nor common sense ! No 
wonder Charles Fox exclaimed in dis- 



80 THOMAS PAINE 

gust, "Good God, that a man should be 
sent to Botany Bay for advising another 
to read Paine' s book V 7 

Meantime a very different scene had 
been enacted across the Channel. At 
Calais, Paine was received with every 
mark of honor. Troops were drawn up 
to receive him at the city gate ; officers 
embraced him, like the Frenchmen they 
were ; a charming citoyenne pinned the 
cockade in his hat ; and the crowd 
shouted, "Vive Thomas Paine, vivent 
les Droits de Phomme ! " In the even- 
ing, when he was formally notified of 
his election, he was seated beneath the 
bust of Mirabeau, with the colors of 
France, America, and England entwined 
behind his chair. 

On September 21 the Convention met 
in the old Biding School at Paris ; and 
the same day the French Bepublic, one 
and indivisible, was proclaimed. The 
constitution of 1791 had outlived its use- 
fulness, and a committee was appointed 



THOMAS PAINE 81 

to frame a new one. Si6y£s was given 
the. first place, Paine was the second 
member, and the remainder of the com- 
mittee consisted mainly of prominent 
Girondins- The single statesman of 
the entire number, Danton, did not long 
remain to share labors which he saw 
would be fruitless. 

Bui the question overshadowing the 
Convention was the future king, whose 
trial was inevitable. From the first 
Paiaae straggled to save his life. Before 
l&mfc? flight, he had believed the revo- 
tariaam could be effected without de- 
thronement Now that his Majesty was 
CHtoyen Capet, every consideration of 
1iffl«anitf and policy seemed to Paine to 
fitffcM the extremity of death. Since his 
Qt&a&er ehildhood, humanity had been a 
mmmprlng of bis actions j and, as he 
grew $Ml§$, it became in his mind indis- 
sotoMy ^jun&eted with liberty, Bayatty 
f&e thP^gM folly, and worse : the man 
who wor# tb# gv&wu was as other siej* 



82 THOMAS PADfE 

are. "Fin of the Scotch parsoo*s ojwa* 
ion," he had said years before- im Eng- 
land, "when he prayed against Louis 
XIV., l Lord, shake hint aver the mouth 
of hell, but don't let him dmsjpS" 
Monarchy did not depend on t&e Mngfs 
life and it was clear that his cteafcit mast 
alienate the single friend Framee had,. 
the country which regarded L0H& as her 
saviour,— America. Paine naaeterstoodl 
this fully, and the lesson taugM by the 
history of the Stuarte T&-4®lm&&L hi* 
conviction. 

He early tried to impress the nonfat- 
tity of Louis upon his fellow*dep*rti«& ! 
Of the abolition of royalty he wrote^ 
"Amid the general joy inspired by this* 
event one cannot forbear some paaia at 
the folly of our ancestors T*fc#> batve 
placed us under the necessity of tr^bin^ 
seriously the abolition of a phaoato^.^ 
Louis, be thought and wote> w*st be 
tried, Kings, like otber me**> mmsfc, 
when acoused, eouie to tfee baa? be&^e 



THOMAS PAINE 83 

their peers. The king was party to a 
conspiracy of "crowned brigands/' and 
his testimony was necessary to detect 
and thwart the schemes of the partners 
of his crime. 

During the month which preceded the 
actual trial of Louis, the frenzy of Paris 
constantly increased. An iron chest was 
discovered, filled with proofs of the 
king's correspondence with the nation's 
enemies and of the hollowness of every 
promise he had made to obey the con- 
stitution. The Jacobins of the " Moun- 
tain" terrified the vacillating and di- 
vided Girondins. * i Bevolutions, ' ' called 
Danton, tauntingly, to Paine, across the 
floor of the Convention, "are not made 
with rose-water." 

On December 3 Eobespierre decided 
the king's fate. The death penalty, he 
argued, was not a question of ethics or 
even of justice so much as a political 
necessity. France must show her power 
and her determination. On the 11th 



Louis was called to the bar of the Con 



. 



S4 THOMAS PAINE 

Louis W 

vention. 

For the next month the debates were 
full of sound and fury. The distorted 
argument of political necessity hope- 
lessly divided the wavering Gironde. 
On January 14, 1793, it was agreed that 
the roll of the Convention should be 
called, and that every member should 
answer in turn the three questions : first, 
Is Louis guilty of crimes against the na- 
tion? second, Shall the judgment be 
submitted to the people? third, What 
shall be the penalty? 

On the first question the vote was 
overwhelmingly affirmative. On the 
second an appeal to the people was re- 
jected. On both questions Paine voted 
with the majority. Of his motives there 
is no doubt. Like most of the moderate 
members of the Convention, Paine mis- 
took the shriek of the Commune for the 
voice of France. The king himself sup- 
posed that an appeal to the people meant 



THOMAS PAINE 85 

death. Paine had no doubt of it. It 
was a cruel, a fatal mistake. The judg- 
ment of the twenty-five millions of 
French people would not have sent 
Louis to the scaffold. 

The vote on the third question was 
delayed till the following day. Before 
it was put, Paine gave to the president 
a manuscript address. There was no 
time to have it read, and it was printed. 
In it Paine answers Bobespierre's con- 
tention of political necessity. Every 
sound argument of policy pleads for the 
king's life. The friendship of America 
depends upon it. The death of the king 
does not kill kings. His family remain 
a constant menace to the nation's peace. 
And then Paine strikes home, and re- 
calls Eobespierre's former speech for the 
abolition of capital punishment. The 
true solution is to hold Louis prisoner 
during the rest of the war, and then ban- 
ish him to those United States which, by 
fulfilling the will of a generous people, 
he had done so much to serve. 



86 THOMAS PAINE 

The Mountain, who knew that the 
secret of its power was to dare the 
worst, would have recked little of such 
words, even if they had been spoken 
before the Convention. Amid shouts 
and confusion the voting began. It 
lasted throughout the night and far into 
the next day. When Paine' s name was 
called, he stuck fast to his colors. 
"I vote," he cried, in his broken 
French, "for the detention of Louis till 
the end of the war, and after that for 
his perpetual banishment. ' ' Three hun- 
dred and thirty-three members voted 
like Paine. Twenty-six wished timor- 
ously to postpone the penalty. Three 
hundred and sixty- one, in the whole 
Convention, a majority of one, voted 
unconditionally for death. 

A single hope remained. Could not 
Louis be held beneath the shadow of 
the guillotine, a hostage of the nation's 
enemies ? Eespite meant much : it 
might mean everything. On the 20th 



THOMAS PAINE 87 

the vote was to be taken. English 
persecution gave Paine credentials to 
republicanism which could not be dis- 
puted. He determined on one more 
attempt. On the 19th he ascended 
the tribune with a written address, fol- 
lowed by the deputy Bancal, who was 
to read his speech for him. For a time 
the tumultuous assembly was still. 
" Very sincerely/ ' began Bancal, "do I 
regret the Convention's vote for death.'' 

Marat sprang from his seat far up on 
the left. l c I submit, ' ' he shouted, i l that 
Thomas Paine is unfitted to vote on this 
question. As a Quaker, his religious 
principles oppose capital punishment." 

An uproar followed ; but cries of 
"Free Speech!" rose from the 
"Plain," and the noise sank to mur- 
murs. Bancal continued his reading. 
The speech was not a fervid appeal for 
mercy, but a calm protest against haste 
in an irrevocable step. The Convention, 
it urged, was but a temporary body. 



88 THOMAS PAINE 

The execution of the sentence should be 
left subject to the will of deputies chosen 
under a national constitution. But the 
power of the u Mountain" was in the 
Convention. Its members meant to 
make the Convention perpetual, and 
they were terribly in earnest. 

"This," shouted Thuriot, " is not the 
language of Thomas Paine." Marat 
took the cue : "I denounce the inter- 
preter," he screamed. "This is not 
Thomas Paine' s opinion. The transla- 
tion is false ! 7 ? 

A moderate deputy arose, and pro- 
tested that the translation was correct. 
He had read the original. There was 
wild confusion in the hall. Paine, un- 
able to express himself, and imperfectly 
comprehending the shrieks and cries 
about him, stood silent in the tribune. 
Bancal, protesting earnestly that his 
translation was accurate, was at length 
allowed to proceed. 

"Ah ? citizens," he read, "give not 



THOMAS PAINE 89 

the tyrant of England the triumph of 
seeing the man perish on the scaffold 
who has aided my much loved America 
to break her chains. " 

Scarely had he finished the closing 
words, when Marat rushed from his seat 
to the centre of the floor. " Paine 
voted/' cried he, " against the punish- 
ment of death because he is a Quaker." 

"I voted against it," replied Paine, 
speaking with difficulty, "both from 
moral motives and from motives of pub- 
lic policy." 

This scene, half- forgotten among 
mightier events, was one of the fine 
moments of Paine' s career. There was 
no rhetoric in his appeal. He had 
never consulted safety : now he had no 
thought of himself. He was an Anglo- 
Saxon pleading for justice, a man plead- 
ing for humanity. 

Madness laid hold of the Convention. 
A courageous minority, led by Buzot, 
voted for postponement ; but a majority, 



90 THOMAS PAINE 

three hundred and eighty strong, voted 

that Louis must die within twenty-four 

hours. 

The Gironde was divided, but its 
segments still controlled a considerable 
majority in the Convention ; and, 
through his friendship with its leaders, 
Paine was appointed a member of 
the Committee of Surveillance. In 
those days, France had not yet been 
swept clear of foreigners, and a few rash 
Englishmen still remained in the capital. 
Among them was a certain Captain 
Grimstone, a man of conservative prin- 
ciples and radical temper. One day 
this gentleman sauntered into the Palais 
Eoyal, — called, in republican style, Pa- 
lais £lgalit6, — and found Paine in a cof- 
fee-room, discoursing upon politics to a 
group of friends. Being known to the 
company, the captain joined them, and 
at once, in virtue of his British birth- 
right, hotly attacked Paine' s principles. 
Paine retorted ; and the fellow, losing 



THOMAS PAESTE 91 

his temper, struck him. a violent blow. 
Death was the penalty for raising hand 
against a deputy, and Grimstone was 
hurried off to prison. Paine, deeply 
troubled, hastened to his friend Brissot, 
and asked for a safe-conduct for his 
assailant. Brissot wished the law to 
take its course, but Paine was in earnest. 
He secured the passport, and it was by 
the aid of his pocket-book that Grim- 
stone was provided with the necessary 
funds to escape from France. This is 
not the only recorded instance of Paine' s 
magnanimity in times when compassion 
was interpreted as treason. 

But, in his efforts to save bloodshed, 
Paine entered a more dangerous path. 
He still believed that war with England 
might be averted. Many of the Gi- 
ronde concurred in his opinion, and it 
was commonly understood that Pitt was 
willing to receive the co-operation of 
moderate republicans to this end. The 
Girondins staked their political hopes 



92 THOMAS PAINE 

largely on the military prestige of Gen- 
eral Dumouriez, whom they wished to 
identify with their party. When he 
came to Paris in the autumn of 1792, 
fresh from the glory of Valmy, Paine 
gave him a dinner at the Hotel de Ville. 
English radicals and French moderates 
met about the board. Shortly after- 
ward it was proposed that Dumouriez 
should go to London to interview Pitt ; 
but this absurd scheme was relinquished, 
and Maret, a less conspicuous agent, was 
chosen. Maret, however, was speedily 
denounced by Chauvelin, the revolution- 
ary envoy, and promptly ordered home 
by the French government. Soon after- 
ward came the fatal trial of the king. 
The indignation of England and the in- 
flammatory eloquence of Burke forced 
Pitt's hand. Chauvelin was dismissed, 
and France retorted by a declaration of 
war. 

Humane as were Paine' s motives, the 
part he played in this episode was dubi- 



THOMAS PAINE 93 

ous. A member of the French govern- 
ment, he was in secret communication 
with Pitt. For a brief space he trod the 
path which the selfish Dumouriez fol- 
lowed to the precipice. The boundary 
line of treason is often ill-defined, and 
Paine was blinded by his principles. 
The Girondins were lacking in patriot- 
ism, but it is not as a patriot that we 
must judge Paine. When Franklin said 
to him, " Where liberty is, there is my 
country, " Paine replied, "Where lib- 
erty is not, there is mine." The words 
were true. It mattered not to him 
where he was fighting the powers of 
oppression : England, France, America, 
were battle-grounds of the same crusade. 
In France he saw mutiny in the army of 
liberty. The Mountain was a new 
tyranny, and Paine resisted it. 

Once war was declared, however, he 
was for war heart and soul. The com- 
bined powers of England and Prussia 
were for him oppression incarnate. 



94 THOMAS PAINE 

There could be no peace while they 
were dominant in Europe. 

Meantime Paine was toiling over the 
constitution which was to end the troubles 
of France. Never was there a more 
chimerical remedy. The Condorcet 
scheme, as history calls it, after its 
principal author, was involved beyond 
the possibility of enforcement. Paine 
protested against a single executive ; and 
an executive council was recommended, 
consisting of seven ministers and a secre- 
tary, of whom half were to retire every 
year. There was to be a single legisla- 
tive body. The rights of the individual 
were elaborated to the last extent. All 
offices were elective, and terms of office 
were for six months or a year at most. 
Had the constitution been put in prac- 
tice, the life of every Frenchman must 
have centred about his journeys to and 
from the polling booths. Thus were the 
rights of man to be guaranteed. 

March 1 was set for the discussion of 



THOMAS PAINE 95 

this fantastic scheme ; but the mere men- 
tion of a constitution was intolerable to 
the Mountain, and the same day its 
leaders made a bitter attack on the Gi- 
ronde, and clamored for the arrest of 
twenty- two members of the Convention. 
In this they were foiled; but Eobes- 
pierre, high priest of Eousseau, de- 
manded that all consideration of the 
constitution should be prefaced by a 
discussion of the introductory u Declara- 
tion of Eights," which had been written 
by Paine. This was a subject dear to 
the red republican heart, that might 
be discussed till the last trump should 
sound. 

In chronicling the rights of man, 
Paine had not even alluded to Eobes- 
pierre's protege, VMre Supreme. Here 
was atheism rampant. An excited dis- 
cussion of the "Declaration" followed; 
and, when preamble and constitution 
alike were recommitted, a number of the 
Mountaineers were forced upon the com- 



96 THOMAS PAINE 

mittee. The constitution was entirely 
remodelled, and on. June 25 it was actu- 
ally adopted by the Convention. But 
for Prance, encircled by enemies and 
divided at home, it was no season to ex- 
periment with theories. The organiza- 
tion of the new government was post- 
poned until universal peace, and the 
Constitution of 1793 was quietly slipped 
into the waste-basket of history. 

During the debate more important 
events had passed. Marat was tried and 
acquitted, and the ruin of the Girondins 
came on apace. On June 2 the Con- 
vention was intimidated by an organized 
mob, and thirty- one members of the 
Gironde were placed under arrest. 
Paine was not on the list of the pro- 
scribed. The Jacobins knew that revo- 
lutions are not made with rose-water but 
with blood. 

During the fearful months which fol- 
lowed, Paine left his seat in the Con- 
vention empty, and lived in retirement 



THOMAS PAINE 97 

in a little house once owned by Madame 
de Pompadour. A small group of 
friends gathered about him, but one by 
one they dropped apart. On September 
5 Terror was declared the order of the 
day, and daily executions became an 
essential of the government's policy. 
On the last day of October a holo- 
caust of Paine' s closest friends in the 
Gironde was offered up. It was a time 
to make men mad. Paine took to 
brandy. For a time he drank himself 
into oblivion, but his despair was not 
lasting. He expected death, and did not 
fear it. He did not even shun it, but 
preferred to stay in Paris and complete 
one last work. 

Tyranny in dogma is of the same es- 
sence as tyranny in government, and 
Paine hated both in kind. At the same 
time he was horrified at the counter-tyr- 
anny of atheism, which abolished the 
worship of God in France. To save re- 
ligion, it must be stripped of all which 



98 THOMAS PAINE 

renders it repellent to reason. Some 
years later Paine wrote to Samuel 
Adams of the time in which The Age 
of Beason was written: "My friends 
were falling as fast as the guillotine 
could cut their heads off ; and, as I ex- 
pected every day the same fate, I re- 
solved to begin my work. I appeared 
to myself to be on my death-bed ; for 
death was on every side of me, and I 
had no time to lose. This accounts for 
my writing at the time I did, and so 
nicely did time and intention meet that 
I had not finished the first part of the 
work more than six hours before I was 
arrested and taken to prison. The 
people of France were running head- 
long into atheism ; and I had the work 
translated into their own language to 
stop them in that career, and fix them 
in the first article of every man's creed 
who has any creed at all, — I believe in 
God." 
On October 3 Paine was denounced in 



THOMAS PAINE 99 

the Convention in tlie harangue which 
was the death sentence of the Girondins. 
They went to the scaffold while he 
sat in his room writing the testimony 
he wished to leave behind him. On 
Christmas night he was formally ex- 
pelled from the Convention. As a citi- 
zen of the United States, he was still 
under the protection of a friendly gov- 
ernment ; but, if he could be considered 
an Englishman, he was immediately 
liable to arrest under the law which 
early in the year had sentenced to im- 
prisonment all resident foreigners be- 
longing to countries at war with France. 
His enemies were at no loss how to act. 
On the night of December 28 Paine was 
arrested, and taken to the Luxembourg 
Prison. On his way thither he was al- 
lowed to intrust to a friend the manu- 
script which he wished given immedi- 
ately to a printer. 



V. 

Unhappily for Paine, lie had one 
enemy whom he had not reckoned upon. 
This was the American minister. Gou- 
verneur Morris was a thorough-going 
Federalist. Paine and his democratic 
principles were odious to him. During 
the controversy over Deane, Morris had 
urged Paine' s summary dismissal ; and in 
Paris he had repeatedly suspected Paine 
of intriguing against him. On the other 
hand, the appointment, as minister to 
France, of a man avowedly out of sym- 
pathy with the revolutionary movement, 
had seemed to Paine most injudicious. 
He had written his opinion to Jefferson 
without reserve, and had not made a 
secret of his feelings to friends in Paris. 
But the French leaders had no need of 
this advice to form an estimate of Morris. 
They knew his sympathies ; and, al- 
though ignorant of the lengths to which 
his intrigues in favor of the king had 



THOMAS PAINE 101 

gone, they disliked, and suspected him. 
Twice his recall was requested of the 
American government, and twice Presi- 
dent Washington had taken no action. 
Morris's position seemed fixed ; and, for 
fear of offending America, France dared 
not go to greater lengths. Paine mean- 
; while, through his influence in the Con- 
vention, was able to do for American 
citizens many services which fell natu- 
rally within the minister's province. 
|One such occasion led to an open breach 
between them. 

In the summer of 1793, France, fol- 
lowing the exasperating practice of Eng- 
land, seized a large number of American 
vessels on the high seas, under pretence 
that their cargoes were for the support 
of the enemy. The captains came to 
Paris, and requested the American min- 
ister to take immediate action. Morris, 
who was not sorry to watch the wedge 
mter between France and America, re- 
ceived them with indifference ; and the 



102 THOMAS PAINE 

captains turned indignantly to Paine. 
He took up their cause, and promptly 
secured for them permission to clear 
their ships and to trade with all colonies 
of France. On this occasion Paine wrote 
Morris a sharp note, and thenceforth 
even outward friendliness was ended be- 
tween them. 

Shortly after this Morris had occasion 
to protest to the French government 
against the conduct of Genet, its repre- 
sentative in America, who had taken it 
upon himself to intrigue with Kentucky. 
At the same time the astute minister 
took the opportunity to hint that 
America desired the French government 
to deal directly with her accredited rep- 
resentative, and to disregard an "over- 
ruling influence from the other side of 
the Channel. " This was, of course, a 
hit at Paine, and gave the French 
government to understand that he was 
no longer looked upon with favor in 
the land of his adoption. This, un* 



THOMAS PAI^E 103 

doubtedly, weakened Paine' s position ; 

j but it is presuming on scant evidence to 

hold Morris directly responsible for his 

imprisonment. 

Once Paine was in prison, however, 
Morris's influence was quite adequate to 
keep the door bolted on the outside. 
After the failure of a petition in his be- 
half, signed by Ajnericans living in 
Paris, Paine applied to the minister to 
claim him as an American citizen. Such 
I he certainly was. The Convention, 
since it was not properly a legislative 
body, had exacted no oath of allegiance 
; from its members ; and the French citi- 
I zenship conferred upon Paine was purely 
honorary. He was imprisoned as an 
] English citizen ; but since July 4, 1776, 
j he had not been a subject of King George. 
I Still, his position bore an appearance of 
». ambiguity ; and Morris took advantage 
| of it. He applied to the Foreign Office 
I for the causes of Paine' s detention, but 
spoke of him as an adopted citizen of 



104 THOMAS PAINE 

France, and made no claim of his Ameri- 
can citizenship. Writing to his own gov- 
ernment, however, Morris asserted that 
he had made such a claim, but added 
that he believed it ill-founded, and recom- 
mended that no further steps be taken. 
Paine' s present obscurity, he argued in- 
geniously, was his surest safeguard. An 
intemperate use of ardent spirits had 
impaired his slender stock of sense. He 
had best remain quietly in prison, where 
"he amuses himself with publishing a 
pamphlet against Jesus Christ. " When 
the matter was placed in this light, the 
American government naturally took no 
further steps. Jefferson, Paine' s friend, 
soon afterwards resigned the Secretary- 
ship of State ; and Paine was left to the 
tender mercies of the revolutionary 
genii which he had helped to loose. 

Discreditable as is the whole affair to 
Morris, there is little reason to doubt 
his belief that sound policy jumped with 
his wishes. He regarded Paine as an 



THOMAS PAINE 105 

impudent and dangerous meddler, whose 
imprisonment was most desirable for 
society. And, after all, the guillotine 
could do such a head no great harm. 

The Luxembourg was the genteel 
prison of revolutionary Paris. Ladies 
of birth, gentlemen of rank and fortune, 
orators and statesmen, who shortly be- 
fore had been idols of the people, 
mingled freely in its strange society. 
One day the gates opened to admit the 
hideous and great Danton. Adversity 
makes strange friends, and Paine was 
almost the first to welcome him. But, as 
he addressed him in stumbling French, 
Danton said in good English : — 

"Mr. Paine, you have had the happi- 
ness of pleading in your country a cause 
which I shall no longer plead in mine." 
And then with honest envy he contrasted 
with his own a career which had not 
been shackled by the duties of office at 
times when policy seemed not to square 
with right. "I have been less fortu- 



106 THOMAS PAINE 

nate," lie added, "but not less innocent. 
They will send me to the scaffold. Very 
well, I shall go gayly." Eight days later 
he kept his word. 

Few tarried long in the Luxembourg. 
The number of executions mounted daily. 
In a single night one hundred and sixty- 
eight persons were taken from this 
prison ; and, of these, eight alone escaped 
the guillotine. Paine had been marked 
for slaughter with the rest, but a singular 
incident saved him. The room which 
he shared with three other prisoners 
happened to be one of a long series on 
the ground floor. The door opened out- 
ward ; and, as the prisoners were still 
allowed to wander where they chose 
within the walls of the building, they 
chanced one day to leave it wide open. 
For the sake of quiet, condemned per- 
sons were removed at night ; and, to 
facilitate the work, the turnkeys taking 
a hint from Morgiana went secretly 
about, marking with chalk the doors of 



THOMAS PAINE 107 

those who were to die. While this was 
being done, Paine 7 s door stood open flat 
against the wall ; and the jailer marked 
a tiny "4" on the inside. Unconscious 
of their danger, the four prisoners closed 
their door before retiring for the night, 
thus hiding the fatal number. While 
they slept, the officers of death passed 
them by. Paine himself believed the 
escape pure accident ; but in those days 
Providence hobnobbed with the guillo- 
tine, and it is probable that some good 
friend of Paine' s within the prison did 
him a timely service. 

In June the rigors of imprisonment 
were increased by the substitution of a 
new warden for the kind-hearted Benoit. 
Communication with the outside world 
was denied the prisoners. Eumors most 
terrible, but not worse than the reality, 
were rife among them ; and men and 
women went to sleep at night knowing 
that they or their neighbors must be 
waked for the guillotine. 



108 THOMAS PAINE 

During the first months of his impris- 
onment, Paine worked over the proof- 
sheets of The Age of Reason ; but, as time 
went on, the awful strain told upon him. 
His health gave way completely. He 
was stricken with fever, and an abscess 
formed in his side. Dangerous as the 
illness was, it was merciful at such a 
time. The fever mounted to his brain, 
and for a long period he lay unconscious 
or wandering in his mind. In July, 
1794, Eobespierre followed his rival to 
the scaffold, and this was the news which 
greeted Paine' s recovery. It was none 
too soon. Among Eobespierre' s papers 
was found a memorandum demanding 
"that Thomas Paine be decreed of accu- 
sation for the interests of America as 
well as of France. " Trial might not 
have meant death ; but in those fraternal 
days prisoners had no counsel. Cases 
might be closed before the evidence was 
heard, and Eobespierre' s name was 
leaden in the scales of justice. 



THOMAS PAINE 109 

After the death of Eobespierre the 
prisons emptied rapidly ; but it was not 
until Morris was superseded by James 
Monroe that Paine' s liberation came. 
The new minister had brought no defi- 
nite instructions with him from America ; 
but, upon receiving a memorial from the 
prisoner, he claimed him as a citizen of 
the United States, and with some diffi- 
culty procured his release after an in- 
carceration of more than ten months. 
Monroe's kindness went to much greater 
lengths. He took Paine into his own 
household, kept him for upward of a 
year, supplied him with money, and had 
him nursed through a serious relapse of 
the illness which had befallen him in 
prison. 

Moderation once again appeared in 
France. The Girondins, who had sur- 
vived the Terror, were restored to the 
bosom of the Convention. Paine himself 
was reinstated, and offered a pension for 
literary services, which he declined. His 



110 THOMAS PAINE 

pen was still at the service of France; 
and lie published a Dissertation on the 
First Principles of Government, which 
contained a clear and temperate state- 
ment of his theories. The new consti- 
tution, however, devised to supersede 
the Constitution of 1793, was out of joint 
with a cardinal principle of democratic 
philosophy. All citizens, veterans ex- 
cepted, who did not pay direct taxes, 
were to be denied the right of suffrage. 
This natural reaction against the riot of 
democracy seemed to Paine a blow at 
the root of republican institutions. For 
the last time he mounted the tribune 
where a clerk read his speech, pleading 
with the Convention to trust the people. 
The protest went unheeded; and, with 
the organization of the Directory, Paine 
left the arena of French politics. 

One of the most melancholy chapters 
in Paine' s history follows. Throughout 
his long imprisonment he had contin- 
ually hoped that Washington, with 



THOMAS PAIHE 111 

whom he had exchanged so many proofs 
of friendship, would demand his libera- 
tion. But Washington, as Paine did 
not know, had been misled by the repre- 
sentations of Morris ; and there can be 
no doubt that the whole course of 
Paine' s revolutionary career in France 
and England was exceedingly distasteful 
to him. The dearest hope of the Presi- 
dent's declining years was to free Ameri- 
can soil of the British garrisons which 
still remained on the northern frontier, 
and to establish a treaty of amity and 
commerce with the mother country. 
To any such treaty Washington knew 
that Paine was violently opposed, and 
he also knew that Paine was as offensive 
to England as any American alive. 
Further, he doubtless shared Morris's 
belief that Paine was conducting an in- 
trigue in Paris to supplant the minister. 
Once assured by Morris that a recla- 
mation had been made, Washington's 
silence was natural and proper. Paine, 



112 THOMAS PAINE 

ignorant of the circumstances, sick and 
neglected, thought it perfidy. More- 
over, his vanity was stung in its tender - 
est spot. His friend, the President, had 
not thought it worth while to interfere. 

Smarting beneath his grievance, Paine 
wrote Washington a reproachful letter ; 
but this Monroe persuaded him not to 
send. His bitterness only grew with 
time ; and in September, 1795, suffering 
from the illness induced by his country's 
neglect, he wrote to Washington, accus- 
ing him of conniving at his imprison- 
ment, and bidding the President exon- 
erate himself if he could. This imperti- 
nent communication received no answer. 
Paine waited nearly a year. Then the 
vials of his gall and wrath burst forth, 
and he published the letter to Washing- 
ton which remains to-day a monument 
of grief and shame. It is not only that 
he accuses Washington of malice and 
treachery, but in a review of his career 
he belittles his successes, distorts his 



THOMAS PAINE 113 

actions, treats his agreement with Eng- 
land like a criminal intrigue, and belies 
what he himself had so often written in 
The Crisis. Let us in charity remember 
all that Paine had passed through, and 
be mindful of his misunderstandings, 
since even then spite and vanity and lit- 
tleness of spirit have, in this instance, 
left a mark upon his memory which we 
may disregard, but cannot forget. 

But it is another pamphlet which, 
among multitudes of good people, has 
made the name of Paine a nom de guerre 
of the devil incarnate. The first part of 
The Age of Reason was, as we have seen, 
written on the threshold of the prison 
whence men passed to the guillotine. 
Part II. was added after Paine's restora- 
tion to liberty. The pamphlet was pub- 
lished both in French and English. 

Ours is an age which has lost its 
interest in theology. Strauss and Baur 
did their work in a past generation. A 
new Kuenen could not wake an echo of 



114 THOMAS PAINE 

the tumult raised by the old. It is less 
the fashion now to drive men from the 
Church than to invite them in. Heretics 
of a hundred years ago might be bishops 
of to-day. The odium theologicum, which 
passes the other hates of this world, can 
nowadays give us no conception of the 
fulness of its fruition when Paine wrote. 
Men could no longer burn each other ; 
all the more reason for hate. This we 
must remember if we would understand 
the unreasoning passions which Paine' s 
pamphlet let loose. 

Paine' s confession of faith is simple. 
He was an ardent Deist, believing in a 
God who created the world, and who is 
known to mankind through the world 
which he created. Nature was Paine' s 
Bible, and science its only interpreter. 
Eegarding science as a holy thing, and 
nature as beneficent and kind, he stood 
for a purely natural religion. The God 
who had made him would not, he be- 
lieved, deny him a life beyond the 
grave. 



THOMAS PALKTE 115 

Surely these were not startling pre- 
cepts. At the end of the eighteenth 
century, Deism had long been known 
both in France and England. But 
Paine came to his own conclusions by 
his own reasoning. He was in childish 
ignorance of books. The Bible and his 
own works made up the sum of his 
written lore, and his belief had in it all 
the vitality and strength of a new re- 
ligion. 

But it was the breaking down, not the 
building up, which turned men's minds. 
Paine' s God was omnipotent goodness ; 
and the blood-guilty Jehovah of the Old 
Testament, who bade His favorites wade 
in the blood of their enemies, was an 
intolerable calumny. 

Bousseau's hatred of the clergy, which 
had permeated France, was rampant in 
Paine ; and he treated the whole Bible 
story as an invention of priestcraft. 
Once examined by the principles which 
science sanctifies, the entire fable dis- 






116 THOMAS PAINE 

integrates. "It is certain" he wrote 
"that what is called the Christian sys- 
tem of faith, including in it the whimsi- 
cal account of creation, the strange story 
of Eve, the snake, and the apple, the 
amphibious idea of a man- God, the cor- 
poreal idea of the death of a God, the 
mythological idea of a family of Gods, 
and the Christian system of arithmetic, 
that three are one and one is three, are 
all irreconcilable, not only to the divine 
gift of reason that God has given to man, 
but to the knowledge that man gains of 
the power and wisdom of God by the aid 
of the sciences, and by studying the 
structure of the universe that God has 
made." 

The idea of revelation of the word is 
absurd ; for revelation is made but to 
one person at a time, and all who listen 
to him listen to hearsay. True revela- 
tion is the creation which we behold, 
which speaks a universal language and 
needs not translation to be understood 
by all men. 



THOMAS PAINE 117 

The New Testament is intertwisted 
with the Old, and must abide or die 
with it. For Christ himself Paine felt 
sincere respect, but, confusing his prin- 
ciples with the dogmatism of churches, 
he held Christianity responsible for all 
the crimes committed in its name ; 
and in the fury of fight he styled re- 
vealed religion "the most dishonorable 
belief against the character of the Di- 
vinity, the most destructive to moral- 
ity and to the peace and happiness of 
man, that has ever been propagated since 
man began to exist." 

The miracles Paine treated with con- 
tempt. All things are possible with the 
Creator ; but, had He seen fit to resort to 
such childish displays of omnipotence, 
Ee would at least have made sure of 
Sis object of making men believe. He 
arould not have chosen a few obscure 
witnesses, whose word must be doubted ; 
lor would He have made his miracles 
themselves capable of misinterpretation. 



118 THOMAS PAINE 

The story of Jonah had been better, had 
the prophet swallowed the whale. But 
even then, in default of many witnesses, 
the question must arise, Which is more 
probable, that a man should swallow 
a whale or tell a lie? 

Paine' s language was not shaped for 
conciliation. He spoke with the brutal 
freedom of a reformer, careless of the 
things which other men held sacred, as 
Cromwell's troopers of a church where 
they stabled their horses. His purely 
speculative imagination had no touch 
of reverence. He was blind to the 
moral grandeur of the prophets and 
deaf to the spiritual music of the Gos- 
pels. He wrote in clear, strong Eng- 
lish which the people could understand ; 
and he wrote as one of them, — a stay- 
maker balling his dirty fists against 
white-shirted tyranny. Here was his 
originality, and here his power. Those 
who had gone before him — Collins, Tin- 
dal, Gibbon, and the band of eighteenth- 



THOMAS PAINE 119 

century free thinkers — were scholars 
speaking to men of education. Paine 
spoke to men who sweated for their 
daily bread and read Bights of Man by 
the light of the evening fire. 

The wheel of time had circled since 
Christ established his pure democracy 
on earth. Here was Paine, a democrat 
of democrats, attacking Christianity be- 
cause it was not a religion for the 
people ! 

The shriek which went up when The 
Age of Reason was published has echoed 
and re-echoed unto this day. Its cause 
was partly horror, partly ignorance, but 
chiefly fear. Timid citizens, who had 
looked upon Bights of Man as a gun- 
powder plot against all governments, 
now thought The Age of Beason an at- 
tempt to destroy all religion. Shrewder 
men, who knew that Paine was no nihil- 
ist, were scarcely less afraid. They real- 
ized that his voice was the voice of 
struggling masses, that democracy was 



120 THOMAS PAINE 

feeling its strength in religion as in 
politics ; but even they were slow to 
understand the moral conviction which 
was the power of Paine' s argument. 

Paine was answered by thousands. 
Most of them replied as mobs reply. 
They hanged and burned his effigy 
anew. They called him "Tom," and 
devils and broomsticks were added to 
his pictures. When rumor reached 
England that Paine' s illness had proved 
fatal, -crowds sang in chorus, — 

" The Fox has lost his tail, 
The Ass has done his braying, 
The Devil has got Tom Paine," 

and much more of the kind. 

A few dozens attempted serious replies ; 
but with fatal judgment they answered 
Paine as theologians, attacking his 
scholarship, when he had none, and 
shoring up the buckling walls in the 
old way. One of them alone, Paine 
eventually thought worthy x>f a reply* 



THOMAS PAINE 121 

Eichard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, 
who was waiting till the archbishopric 
of York should be the gift of a Whig 
ministry, thought it wise, meantime, to 
splinter a few lances for the glory of 
God. One had broken short off in a 
bout with Gibbon, and now he entered 
the lists against Paine. The bishop's 
Apology displays rather unctuous regret 
at the sins of his antagonist ; but, as a 
whole, its tone is surprisingly liberal. 
Its admissions lent new strength to the 
logic of The Age of Reason, and per- 
suaded people to read Paine' s vigorous 
response. 

While the Church of England fulmi- 
nated, the secular lightning struck. 
Thomas Williams, an English publisher 
of The Age of Reason, was tried for 
blasphemy ; and such is the influence of 
established order that Erskine himself 
appeared for the prosecution. The 
scapegoat was sent to prison for a year, 
and the churches were soothed with the 
odor of sacrifice. 



122 THOMAS PAINE 

Meantime the arch- infidel was leading 
a quiet and industrious life in Paris. 
Early in 1796 he published The Decline 
and Fall of the English System of Finance \ y 
foretelling the suspension of specie pay- 
ments by the Bank of England which 
was to ensue ; and in the following year 
he devoted himself to the advancement 
of a small Deistic society in Paris. 

This Church of Theophilanthropy, as 
it was called from the Greek words for 
God, love, and man, was the precursor of 
the multifarious ethical societies which 
have since sprung up. At its birth, five 
families of friends met together in sim- 
ple fashion to discuss questions of morals, 
ethics, and religion. It was Paine' s 
hope that the sphere of the society's 
labors might be widened by public 
lectures on various practical subjects, 
interspersed with moral teaching. The 
creed of Theophilanthropy embraced no 
tenets except a belief in God and in the 
immortality of the soul. Its professors 



THOMAS PAINE 123 

sought to level all barriers which might 
exclude the members of other churches. 

During the years which followed 
there were a few offshoots from the 
parent stem. Vague as was its outline, 
Theophilanthropy was a generous plan 
for the help of humanity, and Paine' s 
heart was in it ; but a church without 
organization cannot survive. A French 
politician with leanings toward the new 
faith asked Talleyrand how it could be 
propagated. "All you must do/' re- 
plied the old cynic, "is to be crucified 
and buried and revive on the third day." 
He was right. Every great religion has 
pointed back to its miracles. Now no 
miracle appeared. When Napoleon 
signed his Concordat with the pope in 
1801, the Church again became universal 
in France ; and, with a multitude of 
other heresies, Theophilanthropy was 
swept away. 

In the earlier stages of his career, 
Napoleon thought Paine worth conciliat- 



124 THOMAS PAINE 

ing. When he returned from his first 
wonderful campaign in Italy, he called 
upon Paine in his modest quarters, and 
assured the delighted republican that 
Rights of Man was nightly beneath his 
pillow, and that its author deserved a 
statue of fine gold. This Paine did not 
deny, and he heartily accepted Na- 
poleon's invitation to accompany him in 
his approaching descent upon England. 

For a time this idea of the conquest 
of England filled Paine' s mind. He 
believed, as Napoleon did in later years, 
that this was the only way to end the 
war, and busied himself with plans for 
the undertaking, which were actually 
adopted by the Directory. The compli- 
ment, however, was not an important 
one ; for the whole scheme merely served 
to cloak the expedition to Egypt, 
whither Bonaparte sailed in May, 1798. 

After Monroe's recall to America, late 
in 1796, Paine took up his residence in 
the household of Nicholas Bonneville, a 



THOMAS PAINE 125 

republican journalist, who had long 
been one of his most intimate friends. 
The vision of the Eepublic of the World 
grew fainter and fainter before his eyes, 
as the power of Napoleon continually in- 
creased. As his hope declined, Paine' s 
interest in politics lessened ; and he 
sought comfort in mechanical diversions, 
discussing steam-engines with Eobert 
Fulton or working upon a new bridge 
model, — "one of the most beautiful 
objects the eye can behold. " 

His longing to return to America grew 
stronger month by month. There alone 
were liberty and democracy ; and, now 
that his work was done, he wished to 
spend his closing years at peace. Ee- 
turn was dangerous, for British cruisers 
swept the sea and Thomas Paine was 
contraband-of-war. Several vessels were 
searched in hopes of finding him, and 
in one instance a change of plan at the 
last moment alone disappointed his 
enemies. 



126 THOMAS PAINE 

In the autumn of 1802 he at length 
set sail, and reached America fifteen 
years after he had left it. They were 
years such as few men may experience 
and live, and they had left him older 
than his age or infirmities could measure. 
But now he had not far to go. 



VI. 

The story of Paine 7 s latter years is a 
sad one. The sorrows of age were the 
least he had to bear. The disappoint- 
ment of failure, the revilement of ene- 
mies, the falling away of friends, were 
his in full measure. He had left many 
enemies in America ; his career abroad 
had made him few friends at home ; and 
The Age of Beason had alienated many 
who had hitherto been faithful. His 
finances however had improved during 
his absence. His property now brought 
him in some £400 a year, — a snug in- 
come for those days. But, as is often 
the case with old bachelors, penurious- 
ness grew upon him toward the end of 
his life. He constantly underestimated 
his means and worried himself with base- 
less fears. 

When Paine landed at Baltimore, 
every newspaper from Maine to Georgia, 
as he says himself, "was filled with 



128 THOMAS PAINE 

applause or abuse " ; but abuse was in 
far the greater volume. Some people 
still gave him credit for his honesty. 
Many sought to convert him. A minis- 
ter of the Church of the New Jerusalem 
came smilingly to greet him. 

"We, sir/ 7 said he, " explain the 
Scripture in its true meaning. The key 
has been lost above four thousand years, 
and we have found it." "Then it must 
be very rusty," remarked Paine. 

Jefferson was in the White House, 
and Paine went straight to Washington. 
The Federalist press, seizing its chance, 
redoubled its abuse of the President ; and 
"The Two Toms" walking the streets 
of the capital, arm in arm, were the 
text of many an edifying editorial. 
Jefferson was too shrewd to be uncon- 
scious of the disadvantages of Paine' s 
friendship, and it is much to his credit 
that he made such public profession of 
it. Throughout his Presidency, Paine 7 s 
pen was at his disposal ; but the author 



THOMAS PAINE 129 

of Tlie Age of Season carried an author- 
ity very different from that of the author 
of Common Sense. 

Nearly a year after Paine' s arrival, 
Madame Bonneville and her three sons 
followed him to America. Her husband 
Nicholas was to have come also ; but he 
was detained in France on business, and 
later the surveillance of republicans, 
instituted by Napoleon, kept him from 
crossing the water for many years. 
Eevolution does not breed conventions, 
and Madame Bonneville came with no 
thought that a malicious interpretation 
could be put upon her relations with an 
old friend of nearly twice her age. 
Paine owed much to the Bonnevilles for 
their kindness and sympathy in Paris ; 
but, although he urged their coming, 
the family proved no slight embarrass- 
ment to him in America. The expense 
was serious, for the Bonnevilles were 
without resources ; and, as they spoke 
no English and Paine almost no French, 






130 THOMAS PAINE 

the pleasures of social intercourse were 
somewhat restricted. However, Mad- 
ame Bonneville had a sincere respect 
for the old republican, and did what 
she could to make his house comfortable 
for him to live in. The boys were sent 
to school. The youngest lived to be- 
come General Bonneville, U.S.A. The 
eldest returned to France ; while Paine* s 
namesake, the second son, was made, 
after Paine' s death, the basis of an 
infamous libel against his memory. 
" Thomas, 7 ' wrote James Cheetham, in 
the Life which is a buttress of the Paine 
mythology, "has the features, counte- 
nance, and temper of Paine." Madame 
Bonneville forthwith brought suit for 
libel. The evidence which her lawyers 
adduced at the trial was conclusive, and 
the jury found Cheetham guilty ; but 
Judge Hoffmann (his name ought not to 
be forgotten), with casuistry worthy of 
his version of Christianity, held that 
Mr. Cheetham, while guilty of libel, had 



THOMAS PAINE 131 

written a very useful book in favor of 
religion, and fixed the damages at the 
modest sum of $150. Thus sheltered, 
Cheetham's lies grew into history. The 
reasoning is clear. Paine had written a 
book against Christianity, ergo he was a 
liar, ergo a vile rogue, ergo infamous and 
accursed be his name among the sons of 
men forever. 

In Bordentown, whither Paine moved 
not long after his return, the persecution 
against him grew past endurance. Ac- 
quaintances refused him their hands. 
"Tom" and the devil were cartooned 
on the same broomstick, and ministers 
warned their flocks against the ravening 
wolf. At the neighboring town of Tren- 
ton, Paine applied for a seat in a stage. 
"I'll be d— d,» said the owner, "if he 
shall go in my stage." And another 
stage- driver observed, "My horses were 
struck by lightning once, and I don't 
want them to suffer again." 

A few old companions stuck by Paine. 



132 THOMAS PAINE 

Colonel Kirkbride, a substantial citizen, 
gave him every evidence of his regard. 
Jarvis, the portrait painter, Mayor 
Clinton, and a circle of devoted Bepub- 
licans welcomed him to New York, 
whither he moved early in 1804 ; but 
the bulk of the party fought shy of 
the stigma of infidelity. John Pintard, 
founder of Tammany Hall (God rest 
him!) said to Paine : "I have read and 
re-read your Age of Beason, and any 
doubts which I before entertained of the 
truth of revelation have been removed 
by your logic. Yes, sir, your very argu- 
ments against Christianity have con- 
vinced me of its truth. ' J u Well, then, ? * 
replied Paine, U I may return to my 
couch to-night with the consolation that 
I have made at least one Christian." 

Madame Bonneville, who found Bor- 
dentown sedative after Paris, followed 
Paine to New York. The continuous ex- 
pense of her support disturbed him ; and, 
irritated at some of her little extrava- 



THOMAS PAINE 133 

gances, lie declared himself not respon- 
sible for her debts. Shortly afterward 
he was sued by a petty creditor ; but, 
after winning his case, he was magnan- 
imous enough to settle the account. 

Paine still had many intellectual inter- 
ests. He had warmly favored Jefferson's 
purchase of Louisiana ; but the admis- 
sion of the new Territory to Statehood, 
with the right to continue the importa- 
tion of slaves, roused all his old fire. 
He addressed a memorial to Congress, 
denouncing the petition of the French 
inhabitants, who " would renew in 
Louisiana all the horrors of San Do- 
mingo. " Again, for the last time, he 
revived his plan for a collective edition 
of his works, and, with versatility that 
even a modern reporter would respect, 
turned from a pamphlet of inquiry into 
the causes of yellow fever to Predesti- 
nation and the Prophets. 

New York City was not a pleasant 
place for Paine to live in ; and for a 



134 THOMAS PAINE 

time he took up his residence in New 
Bochelle, where was situated the manor 
house which the State had given him. 
The fear of poverty, quickened by actual 
decline in the value of his interest- bear- 
ing property, grew to alarm ; and his old 
importunity for rewards from States and 
country began again. He urged Jeffer- 
son to persuade the legislature of Vir- 
ginia to remember his services, but this 
plan came to nothing ; and a year or two 
later he petitioned Congress afresh, re- 
citing the well-known story of his wrongs 
and his deserts, and claiming credit 
for having proposed the French loan, 
which Colonel Laurens had afterward 
secured with his assistance. If there 
was one virtue to which the Continental 
Congress had justly been entitled, it was 
a cheerful readiness to ask for help ; and 
this argument had little weight. Paine 
had become exceedingly unpopular 
throughout the country. No votes were 
to be won by doing him honor. His 



THOMAS PAINE 135 

services dated back a quarter of a cen- 
tury and more, and lie had already been 
rewarded. The petition was rejected, 
and here the whole distressing episode 
ended. 

The remainder of Paine' s life was 
divided between New Eochelle and 
New York. His ostracism grew rather 
than diminished; and, for a man who 
had tasted adulation and found it sweet, 
this was hard to bear. The press abused 
him with all the freedom of a free coun- 
try. Federalist newspapers attacked 
him as a matter of party principle ; and 
The American Citizen, for years the only 
Eepublican paper in New York, soon 
became his bitterest enemy. Its editor 
was James Cheetham, author of the Life 
which has been spoken of before. He 
was an Englishman by birth, and had 
formerly professed devotion to Paine' s 
j principles ; but now, still clinging to 
Eepublican patronage, he began to at- 
tack Jefferson. Paine took up the cud- 



136 THOMAS PAINE 

gels for liis friend ; and, in the con- 
troversy which ensued, neither side was 
reticent in regard to its opinions of the 
other. The Citizen blackguarded Paine 
heartily as a liar and a drunkard. 
Paine brought suit for libel, but his 
death occurred before the case came up 
in court; and Cheetham devoted his 
talents to defaming his opponent's mem- 
ory. His principal confederate in his 
work was one William Carver, a farrier, 
with whom Paine had boarded for a time 
in New York. Several altercations had 
occurred between them in regard to bills 
and other unpleasant details of boarding- 
house life ; but the man's prime object 
was blackmail, and he went so far as to 
show one of his slanderous letters to 
Paine before it was despatched to Cheet- 
ham. The farrier, however, was cheated 
of his hopes of money; and his subse- 
quent testimony against Madame Bonne- 
ville's good name was riddled in a court 
of justice. In later years he turned on 



THOMAS PAINE 137 

his accomplice, called Cheetham a liar, 
and declared his regret at his own mis- 
conduct. The whole dirty business would 
not deserve an allusion, were it not that 
Carver's falsehoods, elaborated by Cheet- 
ham and grafted into the earlier Life by 
"Oldys," have been the fruitful root of 
a century of calumniation. 

The one bright spot in Paine' s horizon 
was the victory of the Eepublican party. 
Jefferson was triumphantly re-elected, 
but just at this season of rejoicing 
Paine' s enemies struck him a hard blow. 
When he offered his vote at the polls in 
New Eochelle, it was rejected on the 
ground that he was not an American 
citizen. No records of the case remain ; 
but Paine' s status as a citizen of the 
United States was precisely that of every 
American after the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and his disfranchisement was 
a cruel injustice in the country which he 
had done so much to make. 

In August, 1806, Paine was stricken 



138 THOMAS PAINE 

with apoplexy ; and, although the dan- 
gerous symptoms passed away, he was 
left greatly enfeebled. The bugbear of 
poverty worried him continually. He 
sold part of his property, and moved into 
cheap lodgings in New York, but was 
later persuaded to occupy more comfort- 
able quarters. 

In the beginning of 1809 Paine felt 
that death was approaching. He wrote 
and signed his will, bequeathing his 
property to the Bonnevilles, and sol- 
emnly reaffirming his belief in his Crea- 
tor. Fear that people might give cre- 
dence to some pious story of death-bed 
repentance beset him; and he dreaded 
being left alone, lest some spy should 
gain admittance. Nor was this alarm ill- 
founded. The brutal curiosity of the 
public, which has betrayed its sensa- 
tional interest in the death of every un- 
believer or reputed sceptic from Voltaire 
downward, was rife about Paine. Even 
his nurse was caught attempting to 



THOMAS PAINE 139 

smuggle in a witness, who might testify 
to some fearful agony of remorse ; and 
Madame Bonneville, Willett Hicks, an 
honest Quaker preacher, and a very few 
close friends had to be continually on 
their guard to shelter the dying man 
from some impudent intruder. 

One day two clergymen actually 
gained entrance to the sick-room. 

1 i You have now a full view of death, ' ' 
said one of them, solemnly. " Whoso- 
ever does not believe in Jesus Christ will 
assuredly be damned." 

"Let me have none of your popish 
stuff ! ' 7 grunted Paine. i i Get away with 
you!" And the story seemed scarcely 
adapted to the purpose of the visitors. 

At eight o'clock on the morning of 
June 8, 1809, Paine died quietly and 
at peace in the seventy-third year of his 
age. He had expressed a wish to be 
buried in the Quaker cemetery, for the 
Quakers were the only Christian sect he 
held in respect ; but the request was 



140 THOMAS PAINE 

denied. Two days after his death his 
body was carried for burial to his farm 
at New Bochelle, twenty-five miles away. 
The Bonnevilles, good Willett Hicks, 
and two negroes were his mourners, and 
followed him to the journey's end. A 
stone was placed to mark the grave ; 
and ten years later William Cobbett, 
once a mistaken vilifier of Paine and 
afterward his eulogist, had his bones 
removed and carried to England, intend- 
ing to raise a monument to him in his 
native land. But the old outcry was 
heard again. A town- crier was sent to 
jail for proclaiming the arrival of the 
infidel's bones. Cobbett relinquished 
his design, and no one in the world 
to - day knows the resting - place of 
Thomas Paine. 

In the hurry of this brief narrative of 
an extraordinary career, I have perhaps 
said too little of Paine as a man ; and it 
is fitting to attempt some slight estimate 
of his capacity and character. 



THOMAS PAINE 141 

Like other men, Paine was moulded 
by circumstances. Born and bred in 
poverty, he reached the mature age of 
thirty- eight with almost nothing of what 
the world calls education, and then sud- 
denly proved himself a pamphleteer of 
the first ability. The feat was wonder- 
ful ; but its secret lay in Paine' s keen 
observation, his logical, scientific mind, 
and his abundant sympathy with the 
people. 

As a statesman, he failed. No man is 
born a statesman ; and, besides his total 
lack of training, Paine had a constitu- 
tional inability to see any question in 
more ways than one. In matters of 
finance, where system is based on mathe- 
matics, his counsel was sound and just ; 
but, when men were to be governed or 
policies shaped, he was impractical. 
Men are not checkers, neither can you 
prove constitutions by syllogism. All 
Paine's logic did not avail him here. 
Morris once wrote of Paine that he 



142 THOMAS PAINE 

had always possessed more of every other 
kind of sense than common sense, and 
there is truth in the satire. The pam- 
phlet which made his reputation, amply 
justified its title ; but it was an argument 
founded on existing circumstances and 
directed toward a single issue. It was 
not a work of constructive policy. Paine 
was one of the people. He had devel- 
oped with the times, and his eloquence 
and logic were precisely what were 
needed to shape the approaching decision 
of his fellow-citizens. In general, his 
theories were based on extremely specu- 
lative views ; and, though they were 
justifiable in the abstract, Paine was de- 
nied the foundation of wisdom in this 
world, — a knowledge of men. In con- 
crete matters his judgment was hasty 
and his self-confidence fanatical. He 
always believed he was right, and he 
never counted consequences. His inter- 
ference in the affairs of Silas Deane and 
the midsummer madness of his letter to 



THOMAS PAINE 143 

the king's attorney-general are para- 
mount instances of the blunders which 
checkered his career. 

Paine had many virtues, but the great- 
est of them was his large humanity. 
He hated cruelty in every form. He 
hated war, he hated slavery, he hated 
injustice ; and his public life was one 
long battle against every form of oppres- 
sion. Intolerance he counted tyranny. 
Toleration itself was to him but a form 
of intolerance 5 for it implies mercy, when 
justice alone is asked. This fine hate of 
wrong is of itself enough to lift his fame 
high above the vulgar slander of his 
enemies and the cloud of his own error. 
It was not peoples, but principles, which 
Paine loved ; yet America must count 
him among the builders of her nation. 
When some one said that next to George 
III. the independence of the colonies was 
mostly due to him, he doubtless accepted 
the compliment. But, putting aside this 
humorous exaggeration, it is mere jus- 



144 THOMAS PAINE 

tice to say that, of all the writers of the 
Eevolutionary era in America, Paine 
was incomparably the most effective, 
that the publication of Common Sense 
deeply and suddenly affected the judg- 
ment of a nation, and that the impor- 
tant Crises .were worth regiments to 
Washington. 

Paine was a religious man. His con- 
victions were few and profound. So 
strong was his faith that it led him into 
the very intolerance he detested, and 
made him ridicule where he ought to 
have shown respect. u Deism, " quoted 
Franklin from a pious author, "that 
is atheism" ; and his comment was, 
6 1 Chalk, that is charcoal. ? } Paine' s 
God was more present to him than the 
Christian God to many a Christian man. 
Paine trusted in Him, and in His name 
he wrote The Age of Reason. 

The most striking characteristic of 
Paine' s genius was his versatile origi- 
nality. Many subjects he was the first to 



THOMAS PAINE 145 

approach ; and, where he followed, he 
was generally ignorant of those who had 
gone before. His talent for mechanics 
was extraordinary. Within these nar- 
row limits it is idle to discuss his great 
contributions to the science of bridge- 
building or his share in the adaptation 
of steam to machinery. With education 
and a life of more concentrated interests, 
he must, beyond question, have been 
numbered among great inventors. 

In private life Paine was uncorrupted 
by the worst vices of his generation. 
He was never abstemious, and during 
the Eeign of Terror he drank to excess ; 
but, if there be any truth in the accounts 
of drunkenness in his later years, it lies 
in very occasional indulgence at a time 
when gentlemen slept under the table 
and awoke still gentlemen. The stories 
of his filthy habits are slander, though 
toward the close of his life he became 
more careless of his dress, and maybe 
did not brush his coat after each pinch 



146 THOMAS PAINE 

of snuff. He was always gentle to chil- 
dren and to animals. In manner he was 
kindly, and in conversation intelligent; 
but he was intolerant of contradiction, 
and not disinclined to assume the god in 
a gathering of friends. 

Like most vain men, Paine had little 
pride. His repeated requests for money 
for his services grate harshly enough, 
but their origin was not in meanness. 
His copyrights might have made him 
rich, yet he gave the proceeds away 
without a trace of reluctance ; and, even 
at times of his greatest poverty, he was 
ready and glad to give to any cause he 
loved. The reasons for his petitions are 
rather to be found in continual poverty, 
a constant desire for recognition, and 
a frank belief that he had earned his 
money. 

Let us treat the memory of Thomas 
Paine without prejudice. This insur- 
gent democrat was not an attractive 
person, as we look at him from the ranks 



THOMAS PAINE 147 

of respectable society ; but among the 
real revolutionists of the world, even 
amongst the greatest of them, how many 
should we have cared to treat as friends'? 
We might as reasonably seek courtesy in 
Luther or urbanity in Cromwell as mod- 
eration in Paine. It is the pioneers who 
have done the hardest work the world 
has given men to do. Had they been 
gentler or more sensitive, they could not 
have endured to the end. Thus it was 
with Paine. His tasks were not all done 
wisely, but they were done bravely. 
Too often his light was darkness ; but 
he walked steadfastly in its path, and 
the goal which he sought was the hap- 
piness of his fellow-men. 



BIBLIOGEAPHY. 

Of the vast deal that has been written 
concerning Thomas Paine, but little is 
of permanent value. Pamphlets un- 
numbered about him and his works have 
gone the way of pamphlets. The earlier 
so-called "Lives" are merely fragmen- 
tary sketches, filled with slander or with 
eulogy, as the case may be. Several of 
them, however, are worth reading, if 
for no other reason, at least to enable 
one to appreciate the growth of the 
Paine mythology. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that 
Paine' s career cannot be fully under- 
stood without the aid of reliable his- 
tories of the American and French 
Eevolutions and of the great liberal 
movement in England, so long held in 
subjection by the ministers of George 
III. Moreover, many interesting refer- 
ences to Paine may be found in the let- 
ters of his great contemporaries, Frank- 
lin, Washington, Jefferson, and Madi- 



BIBLIOGEAPHY 119 

son. Above all, Thomas Paine as he 
lived appears in his own works, which 
contain mnch autobiographical ma- 
terial. These have happily been col- 
lected and edited by M. D. Conway 
(New York, 1894: G. P. Putnam's 
Sons). 

A short list of the principal biogra- 
phies of Paine is as follows : — 

I. The Life of Thomas Pain, Author 
of The Bights of Men, with a Defense 
of his Writings. By Francis Oldys 
(George Chalmers), A.M. of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. (London, 
1791: J. Stockdale.) 

II. The Life of Thomas Paine. By 
James Cheetham. (New York, 1809 : 
South wick & Pelsue. ) 

III. The Life of Thomas Paine. By 
T. C. Eickman. (London, 1819 : T. C. 
Eickman. ) 

IV. Memoirs of the Life of Thomas 



150 BIBLIOGEAPHY 

Paine. By W. T. Sherwin. (London, 

1819: E. Carlyle.) 

V. The Life of Thomas Paine. By 
G. Vale. (New York, 1841.) 

VL The Life of Thomas Paine. 
By Moncure D. Conway. 2 vols. 
(New York, 1892 : G. P. Putnam's 
Sons.) 



The BEACON BIOGRAPHIES. 

M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE, Editor. 



The aim of this series is to furnish brief, read- 
able, and authentic accounts of the lives of those 
Americans whose personalities have impressed 
themselves * most deeply on the character and 
history of their country. On account of the 
length of the more formal lives, often running 
into large volumes, the average busy man and 
woman have not the time or hardly the inclina- 
tion to acquaint themselves with American bi- 
ography. In the present series everything that 
such a reader would ordinarily care to know is 
given by writers of special competence, who 
possess in full measure the best contemporary 
point of view. Each volume is equipped with 
a frontispiece portrait, a calendar of important 
dates, and a brief bibliography for further read- 
ing. Finally, the volumes are printed in a form 
convenient for reading and for carrying handily 
in the pocket. 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers, 

6 Beacon Street, Boston. 

[over.] 



The BEACON BIOGRAPHIES. 



The following volumes are the first issued: — 

John Brown, by Joseph Edgar Chamberlin. 
Phillips Brooks, by the Editor. 
Aaron Burr, by Henry Childs Merwin. 
Frederick Douglass, by Charles W. Chesnutt. 
David Glasgow Farragut, by James Barnes. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
Robert E. Lee, by W. P. Trent. 
James Russell Lowell, by Edward Everett Hale, Jr. 
Thomas Paine, by Ellery Sedgwick. 
Daniel Webster, by Norman Hapgood. 

The following are among those in preparation: — 

John James Audubon, by John Burroughs. 
Edwin Booth, by Charles Townsend Copeland. 
James Fenimore Cooper, by W. B. Shubrick Clymer. 

Benjamin Franklin, by Lindsay Swift. 
Sam Houston, by Sarah Barnwell Elliott. 



SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers, 



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